In the Graveyard, Doing Handstands
by Dead Tea
Summary: After losing his family, Jack is taken in by his uncle, a famous doll maker. He soon learns why the dolls are so desired - North has found a way to bring them to life. Some see them as a blessing, others a curse, and others still, a dark opportunity.
1. In which Jack loses everything

**Chapter One: In which Jack loses everything, and gains an uncle...**

Jack didn't like the city. There were too many people, too much noise. His mother had been convinced it was a haven for thieves and murderers. His father had brushed off her concerns; he traveled into the city for work frequently and thought the people were selfish, egotistical, but not dangerous. Not most of them.

Jack himself had only been to the city when his father needed a little extra help. These trips were few and far between, as the boy was prone to losing focus, and in his attempts at alleviating boredom often got himself into trouble – with his father, with the customers, with the law.

His family sold vegetables. Sometimes fur. The fur brought in more money, but his father's health had begun to decline in recent years, and Jack was not very good at setting traps. He never really paid attention when his father tried to teach him. He never took it seriously that one day he might not have a father to pick up his slack.

Then "one day" happened. But not in the way they had all imagined.

The neighbors, whose plot of land shared a fence with their field, went first. The old man, the grandfather, had fallen ill and died in a matter of days. No one thought much of it. After all, he was frail and had been on death's doorstep for some time. But then the children, all three, came down with the same symptoms. They were dead after five days. Their mother was dead two days later, and their father the day after that.

Jack heard his parents talk of moving away, going to visit relatives in another country.

But then Emma died. It happened suddenly. They didn't even know she was sick. Jack thought she looked a little red in the face the day before, but she had been outside, running around in the cold, for hours. She insisted she was fine. They found her body the following morning.

His father soon followed. They were packing up the wagon when he fainted. He never woke.

His mother was already running a fever by then, and a bright red rash was spreading up her neck. By the end of one week, Jack's family was gone.

He buried them in the field, and waited for the illness to take him as well. But it never did.

Being only seventeen, he was not old enough to lay claim to his father's land. He could not run the farm on his own either. The bank stepped in with many apologies, and burned it all to the ground, claiming it was the best way to cleanse the disease.

No one in the nearby village would take him in, not after a plague infected his home and killed his family. They were afraid of him, afraid he might bring the illness into the village. When the first of the villagers succumbed to the illness, he knew it was time to go.

And so he set off, alone, to the only other place he knew. Burgess, a small city forty miles away. He had an uncle there, the only family member he was even vaguely familiar with, having met him once.

It was well into night when he set foot on a stone road cutting straight between tall buildings of stone and brick, metal and glass. Lampposts lined the street, flames flickering over pots of oil. His body was weary and his legs ached from walking all day, with only a few short stops to catch his breath and stretch his burning muscles. He had brought a half loaf of bread and an apple with him, but they were long gone, and he was dizzy with hunger.

He also had no idea where his uncle lived.

He started walking, but after a block it became a tremendous struggle to put one foot ahead of the other. His legs didn't want to obey him, and he could feel every blister on his feet. He found a set of plain stairs leading up to a plain door and dropped onto them with a sigh. He could rest here, for just a moment, and then set off again.

That was the plan, anyway. Until he fell asleep.

He was shaken awake some time later – he had no idea how long – by a pretty girl with brown hair. She smile softly at him.

Behind him, someone asked, "Well? Is he alright?"

He turned to look back, and up, at an elder man standing in the doorway. "I'm sorry. I was just resting my feet. I didn't mean to fall asleep."

"It's alright," the girl said, and he turned again to look at her. "We were just worried, that's all. Do you need a place to stay?"

"Katherine!" the man said warningly.

"But it's late!" she replied, rising to her full height and setting her hands on her hips. "And he's obviously exhausted, and probably hungry."

The man gave along suffering sigh, but Jack didn't wait to see what the response would be. He stood up quickly, his breath catching as his feet, and their blisters, pressed into the soles of his shoes. "No. It's fine. I appreciate the gesture, but I … I do have a place … somewhere … my uncle is somewhere around here, so it's fine."

Katherine pursed her lips. "Somewhere?"

The old man came down the steps. "Somewhere? Are you lost?"

Jack's lips moved around a couple of replies and denials, but he took so long deciding on what to say, the answer became obvious.

"I see," said the man. "What is your uncle's name?"

Katherine looked positively gleeful. "We'll look him up in the directory."

"The … what?" Jack had never heard of such a thing. "Um, North. Or, maybe Nick? Nicolas?" He had no idea what his uncle called himself, or what his full name was. "Nicolas North?" Or was it North Nicolas?

"Nicolas St. North?" Katherine asked. She looked stunned, and traded a look with the man. "He's your uncle?"

"I … guess…?" Cities were big. With lots of people. How probable was it that the first two people he met here knew his uncle? The looks on their faces didn't inspire much confidence. Why did they look so surprised?

"He is or he isn't," the man said.

"He is." Jack replied. He backed away a step or two. His father had always chatted away and treated everyone he met in the city as if they were old friends. His mother told him to never say too much and keep his distance. He grew up in a village where no one was a stranger. He wasn't sure if he should be wary or relieved to have met these people. "You know him?"

Katherine's face lit up. "Of course we know him! _Everyone_ knows Nicolas St. North!"

That was news. "Everyone?"

"Yes. Everyone!" She clapped her hands together and looked pleadingly at the old man. "We can show you to him. Can't we, Ombric?"

The man grumbled a bit. "We don't know where he lives, only where he works. It's late. He might not be in."

"I hear he works well into the night. He might still be there." Katherine's eyes got bigger, and she pouted a bit. It was clearly all for show. Jack recalled his little sister getting her way all the time with that look.

Ombric sighed and started up the stairs. "I'll get my coat. And yours too." He disappeared into the house.

Katherine turned a smile on Jack. "I can't believe North has a nephew! He's never mentioned you before."

Jack pulled up a smile of his own, though he was almost too tired for even that. "We aren't close. I've only met him once."

"Oh? He's quite famous in these parts."

Ombric returned, and handed Katherine her coat before pulling on his own.

"Famous?" Jack asked. "My mother said he was a toy maker." That didn't seem like something to become famous over.

"In a sense. He makes dolls, mostly." Katherine buttoned up her coat, then deftly stepped in and hooked her arm through Jack's. "It's not far, really. A few blocks."

Jack gently pulled his arm away from hers. "If you tell me where it is, I'm sure I can find it on my own."

Hurt flashed in Katherine's eyes, but she quickly shook her head. "Nonsense. You're obviously not from around here, and it just isn't safe to wander around an unfamiliar place in the dark."

He was sure his mother would have something to say about wandering an unfamiliar place with two strangers, as well. But neither of them appeared to be a threat. Katherine might be his age, or a bit younger, and Ombric, he decided, was too old. He could probably outrun both of them.

He could outrun most people.

So when they started walking down the sidewalk under the light of flickering lamps, he went along.

It wasn't far. Only a few blocks, as Katherine said. They took their time, and Jack was both grateful – he really was very tired – and annoyed – his feet hurt terribly, and he wanted off them. They tried to fill in the time with chit chat, but Jack was reluctant to give them more than his name and that he was from a small town outside the city.

They arrived at a beautifully carved door, with the name of the business carved into the wood. _Dingle and Dongle Dollshop. _Jack huffed out a laugh while Katherine tried the door. There were no signs indicating whether or not it was open, and no windows to look inside.

The door was unlocked, but there was no light. The inside of the shop was dark.

Jack's smile fell. "Guess he's not here."

"The door is unlocked," Katherine said.

"So … he forgot to lock it?" Jack reasoned. "Hey, what are you…?" Katherine had marched right into the store.

Ombric took his shoulder and gently pushed him in after the girl. "If the door is unlocked, North is here."

Katherine had stopped in the middle of the store. It was too dark to see anything clearly, but from the light that came from outside, Jack could just make out little faces and bodies lining shelves and tables, and some even hanging from strings from the ceiling.

"Mr. North!" Katherine shouted. She stomped her feet on the wood floor, hard enough to rattle some of the merchandise.

Jack cringed. This felt an awful lot like trespassing. "I can just wait outside. I'll catch him when he leaves. Or … or…"

Ombric kept a hand on his shoulder, and there was a surprising strength in those thin old fingers that warned Jack he would not get far if he tried to run.

There came a thump from under their feet. Muffled voices. And soon, heavy footsteps growing louder, like a giant stomping up stairs.

Almost accurate. North was the closest thing to a giant Jack had ever seen. He threw open a door on the other side of the store and strode in with a single candle. The light flickered off little glass eyes all around the room. Before, the dolls had just been vaguely unsettling. Now it was downright creepy.

He was broad in the chest and shoulders, and towered over all of them. He looked like a man who enjoyed his meals. But Jack could see that most of that bulk was pure muscle. Most of his face was hidden under thick white beard and mustache that grew to his chest.

Jack shrank back. He remembered his uncle being huge and intimidating, but he had been smaller, and his memory of that day wasn't very clear. He felt like that little boy all over again.

"Ombric! Katherine!" North's voice was loud, but not angry. It was thick with a northern accent, like his father's, only stronger. His eyes sparkled in the candlelight with warmth. "What brings you here at this late hour?" He leaned in to get a better look at Jack. "Who is your friend?"

"Don't you know him?" Katherine asked.

"Should I?" North scratched at his beard and tilted his head from side to side. Jack squirmed under the examination. "What is your name?"

"Jack Frost. Overland-Frost? I'm your…"

"Nephew!" North crowed, and suddenly Jack was being squeezed in huge arms, his feet dangling in the air. "You have grown!" He dropped Jack and ruffled his hair, which didn't affect it much as it was pretty messy already. "My baby brother's baby boy. Why are you here? Where is your father?" He looked up and around.

Jack rubbed his ribs, certain a bone or several had cracked. It was also an excuse to avoid looking at North, or the other two, in the eye. "I guess word hasn't reached you yet," he said, his voice a mumble. "Father Gray said he would contact everyone…" He peeked up through his white fringe, and saw that North was confused. "Some kind of sickness spread through the village. There's been no survivors as far as I know." He swallowed hard and cast his gaze down. "Dad and Mom, and even Emma… They're all gone."

There was a soft gasp – Katherine – and then North was hauling him in for another hug, this one gentle and comforting. And it felt wrong, and strange, because his uncle was practically a stranger, and he had dealt with the fallout of his family's death alone.

But he wanted this. He wanted someone to care, to take some of the burden, to understand what he was going through. Not empty gestures of sympathy, and fear that he might be a carrier, and his home and family burned to ashes. It made the walk here – the whole day of it – worth the weariness and pain, to hear North whisper how sorry he was, and to feel how the large man's chest shuddered, because he was hurt too, and he understood.

He heard the door open and close, and he knew Ombric and Katherine had left.

North let him go after a while, and his eyes were bright with tears. "So you came to me?"

"I'm sorry." Jack ducked his head. "I didn't know where else to go."

"Do not apologize. You are family." He took Jack's face between his hands, as if it were a precious thing. "You will stay with me."

Jack took a breath. He wouldn't have to ask, and for that he was a relieved. "I won't be a burden. I'll get a job. I'll help out."

"We will talk about that later." North gave his cheek a pat, then turned away, his boots thumping loudly as he walked to the door at the back of the store and called down, "Tooth! Come up and meet my nephew!"

"Tooth?" Jack asked. He heard a clatter from below.

"It is not her real name, but it is what we call her."

Light, quick footsteps preceded a small woman in airy blue and green clothes appearing in the doorway. She moved across the room on light feet. Once she was in range, her hands darted out to grab his face, and her thumbs pressed at the corners of his mouth. "Let me see your teeth."

"My … what?" He shot a confused, frightened look up at North. He shouldn't have spoken. That was all Tooth needed to pry his lips open and peer excitedly into his mouth.

She pulled back with a beautiful grin. "I remember you now."

"You … remember me? Have we met before?"

She shook her head. "You were new when I met you. You won't remember. But I never forget."

He ran his tongue over his teeth, not sure what that had to do with it.

North settled an arm around Tooth's shoulders. "Jack will be staying with us."

Us.

Oh.

"Wonderful!" She sounded perfectly happy, but her smile was a bit strained.

Jack suddenly felt awkward, uneasy. No one had ever mentioned an Aunt Tooth.

One of North's hands fell over his shoulder, heavy and enveloping. "You look like you could use some food, and a good rest. Let us go home."

Home was not far. Only a block. But by the time they reached it, Jack was ready to collapse. And then there was a flight of stairs. He hauled himself up by the handrail. Halfway to the second floor, North grabbed his arm and practically carried him up.

Nothing about the building itself, inside or outside, stood out. As far as Jack could tell without a good source of light, it was a plain brick building, with three floors, and four doors on each floor. The stairway was wood and metal and made a lot of noise as they climbed. The door they came to was the second on the left, and simply brown with the number 204 painted on. Tooth inserted a key and pushed it open.

The apartment on the other side was small.

No, it was ridiculously tiny. North's candle lit the whole place up.

And cluttered with clothes just strewn wherever, and a stack of unwashed pots and pans shoved in a corner by a small sink. There was a tiny stove on one wall, and bed under the one window. He guessed the curtained off area that shared a wall with the door was the toilet.

It was one room.

"We'll have to buy a bed for you," North said, pushing him far enough into the room that the door would close.

Where would they put it, Jack wondered.

Tooth produced a slice of bread from a small cabinet next to the stove and gave it to him. "You'll feel better with something in your stomach. I'll set up a place for you to sleep. I'm afraid it's going to be the floor for now."

Jack shrugged. "That's okay." He bit into the bread. It tasted odd, moldy. But he was too hungry to not eat it.

For a guy who was supposedly famous, North sure didn't live like it.

Though, Jack didn't know any other famous people for reference.

Tooth fashioned him a bed out of clothes stuffed under a sheet, and a blanket. She tossed down a pillow from the bed. "It's not much…" she said apologetically.

"It's perfect," Jack said. He collapsed on the pile and rolled into the blanket. The moment his head hit the pillow, he felt himself falling. He heard some murmurs from North and Tooth, but his mind was too fuzzy, and he didn't care, and he quickly slipped away.

* * *

**AN: **I have MOST of this fully plotted. I'm hoping, by the time I reach the parts I'm not sure what to do with, I will have figured out what to do with them.

**Up Next: **Bunny, and the consequences of eating moldy bread.


	2. In which Jack gets a job

**Chapter Two: In which Jack gets a job, and Bunny disapproves...**

It was far too early when Jack was jolted out of his sleep by a rather large foot kicking him in the side. The floor under him shook hard as, behind him, something heavy collided with it. He blinked his bleary eyes and rolled over to see North sprawled on the floor, chuckling.

"I am sorry!" his uncle said, struggling to sit up. "I forgot you were there!"

Jack grumbled and rolled back, his head dropping on the pillow, and none too thrilled at being tripped over. His head was pounding, and his stomach gurgled and cramped. He wanted nothing more than to fall back to sleep.

"None of that," North said, his voice too loud in the small room. Jack felt a hand close over his arm and he was pulled up from the blanket with a startled yelp. "It is time to get up and get to work!"

"Work?" Jack rubbed his eyes with a fist and yawned. "I don't have work yet."

"You do now. Tooth and I talked about it last night."

"Huh?" He dropped his hand. His stomach pinched and he rubbed at it.

North didn't seem to notice. "You will work for me, of course! We are very busy, Tooth and I, so we need someone to mind the shop." He patted Jack on both cheeks. "I will pay you, of course."

Of course. But would it be enough to live on? He guessed not, if this apartment was anything to go by.

Still, he needed work, and he needed to not be a burden to his uncle and … Tooth. Until he learned the city better and settled in, working for North might be for the best.

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, not caring that it stuck out in every direction. "Yeah. Okay. Sure."

"Wonderful! Get ready and we will go." North pulled his nightshirt off without an ounce of modesty, and Jack learned the hard way that the man didn't wear undergarments.

"Ahh!" Jack grabbed his pillow and shoved it over his face. "Where is Tooth?" He noticed she wasn't in the room, and he doubted it was for privacy's sake she was gone. He was glad he slept through whatever her morning ritual might be.

"Already at the shop." He could hear North moving around, whispers of cloth as he got dressed. "You do not have a bag? No other clothes?"

"Uh, no. I'm wearing everything I own." Jack tentatively lowered the pillow, and rested his aching head against it. "Father Gray thought it was in the best interest of the village to destroy everything, including the clothes off my back. These were donated to me by the church."

North clucked his tongue with disapproval. "We will get you clothes. You can't go around with only one set. Not if you are working for me."

"You don't have to do that." Jack carefully got up from his makeshift bed on the floor and tugged his clothes around. They were dirty, and wrinkled, and he didn't look at all presentable, even after he tucked the shirt into the pants. "I'll … I'll figure something out…"

"Nonsense!" North waved him off. "You are family. I will take care of you."

Jack's face went red with embarrassment, shame. Legally, he wasn't old enough to be on his own, but he shouldn't need to rely on a near stranger for support. The only thing that had kept him from finding work outside of his home – when he had one – was that his family wanted him to help with the farm, take it over someday. He had never before had to rely on the kindness of others.

North clapped him on the shoulder and propelled him toward the door. He felt his stomach lurch, but swallowed down the urge to throw up the moldy bread he'd eaten last night. "Work now, shopping later."

The walk to the shop was almost pleasant. North hummed happily, and walked slow enough that Jack, his feet still hurting from blisters, could keep up. The sun was up, and the morning was already warming, and Jack realized it was much later than he had assumed.

The door to the shop was wide open. Tooth was there already, flitting around the back of the store impatiently. When she saw them, she rushed over and wagged a finger at North. "I have been here two hours! You said you would be right behind me!"

"The boy would not wake," North said. Jack felt another blush creep up his neck. Had they been waiting on him? "What does it matter? We are here now."

"We have so much work to do," Tooth complained, and she was off again, darting around them and the store. "You told him what we talked about?" She paused long enough to catch Jack's attention. "He told you? Did you agree?" Back up to North. "Did he agree?"

"Yes, yes. Everything is fine." North took a few long strides across the room, to the counter with the register, and a box full of pastries. "Jack can look after the store while we work below." He grabbed three of the sticky sweet pastries out of the box – one for his mouth and one for each hand.

Jack nodded, but didn't get a chance to say anything before Tooth had him by the arm and was dragging him to the counter.

"Good," she said. "We don't get a lot of customers, so you shouldn't worry too much about that. Do you know how to use a register?" She didn't wait for him to reply. "We don't spend a lot of time up here. You can sweep it up and dust, can't you? Don't break anything. Have some breakfast!"

North got him by the shoulder and laughed. "You will be fine. If you need anything, just knock."

"Sure." Jack took a breath. Dusting and sweeping. He was seeing a long, boring day ahead, which probably wasn't a bad thing with how he felt.

His uncle gave him a good-natured jostle and then herded Tooth down the stairs. The door thudded shut with a heavy finality and a click, and Jack got the impression that he would not be welcome on the other side.

So.

Dusting and sweeping.

He grabbed a pastry, in the hopes it might quell the turmoil in his stomach, and went in search of a broom. The store didn't have any other doors aside from the entrance and the stairs, so no broom closet. When his searching – and he wasn't searching very hard – turned up with nothing, he went around the room, studying and poking at the dolls.

Tooth wasn't kidding. She and North must not have spent much, if any, time on the upper level. The dust was so thick it would have to be scrubbed off. It was all over every surface, and even the dolls themselves. How did they manage to sell anything when the store was so neglected?

He picked up a red-haired doll and made her stand on little sandaled feet. Like most of the dolls, she was carved from wood, with joints in the shoulders and hips so her arms and legs could move. Her eyes were huge, and blue, and made of glass. "I'm a dirty girl," he sang, in a cheery, high pitch voice. Then he laughed and tucked her up in one arm like a baby. "You know where the broom is? No? Me either."

He bounced the doll on his hip and started his circuit around the store again.

Only to stop short when the light coming in through the door was cut off. A tall man stood blocking the entrance. He was handsome, in a rugged kind of way. His hair was long and tied back, his face was in need of a shave, his skin was weathered and tanned. He smelled of leather, and Jack bet it was the pants.

"Hey," Jack greeted. "Can I help you?"

The man stepped into the store and leveled a suspicious glare on Jack. He stared for a several long seconds, as if he were sizing up an opponent, or trying to look right through the young man. It made Jack nervous.

"Who are you?" The man reached forward, lightening quick, and snatched the doll away. "Does North know you're up here getting into his things?"

"Um, yeah." Jack grabbed the doll right back. He shoved his nervousness aside, pushed it down, and covered it up with a broad grin. His temples throbbed, but he ignored that too. "He put me charge up here, actually."

The man snorted. "And _who are you_?" He had an accent, one Jack had never heard before.

"Jack. I'm his nephew." The doll was returned to her place on the shelf. "Who are you?"

"Doesn't matter." The man crossed the room with long strides and pounded on the back door. He shouted, "North! Get up here!"

Jack winced at the noise and hopped up on the counter, taking up another pastry to munch on. The man cast another glare at him, then stepped back as North's heavy boots stomped up the stairs, and the door flew open.

"Bunny!" North threw his arms wide, as if he meant to embrace the man.

Jack nearly choked on his pastry, barking out a laugh. Mr. Huge and Tough was named _Bunny_?

The man hopped out of the way of North's affection and pointed at Jack. "What is that?"

"Hm?" North followed the man's finger, then looked at him with confusion. "That is Jack. He is my brother's son. I have told you about him."

It was Jack's turn to be confused. "You have?"

"Yeah, you have, mate," Bunny said. "Why is he _here_?"

"He is working." North glanced over at Jack. "Working very hard, if he is already taking a break."

Jack gave him a grin and a salute, and North smiled back.

Flustered, Bunny waved his arms around. "Are you mad?"

"No. I am quite happy today."

Jack snickered, earning another smile from North, and a glare from Bunny.

"You know what I mean," the rugged man growled. "I thought you said you couldn't take on anyone else. You and Tooth work alone. That's what you've said, over and over. And here you've got this … this…" Bunny flailed an arm at Jack.

"Nephew," North supplied, happily and as if Bunny's ranting had no effect on him. "He is family."

"He shouldn't be here," Bunny pressed.

"Hey!" Jack shouted from the countertop. All mirth was gone; he was angry.

"You're just asking for trouble," Bunny went on.

Jack jumped down, his feet striking the hardwood floor with enough force to rattle the nearest shelves. And boy did that hurt. He was pretty sure a blister or two burst. He ignored the jolts of pain as he moved to stand in front of the man. "What is your problem? I'd appreciate it if you didn't make snap decisions on my character when we've only known each other two seconds. You don't know me. I don't know you. At all!"

"I know all I need to know." Bunny sneered. He pulled an envelope from his pocket and shoved it at North. "I came to give you this."

North took the envelope with a solemn nod. Bunny left without another word.

Jack turned to his uncle and cried, "What have you been telling people about me?"

North tucked the envelope away, avoiding Jack's open and baffled face. "Only what your father has written in the letters he sends." He smiled softly. "You kept him on his toes, didn't you? A troublemaker through and through."

"I didn't … I … I guess…"

"He loved you. And he was very proud of you."

Jack's throat closed up. His head swam and a pressure built, between his ears and behind his eyes. The same pressure filled his lungs and made his chest ache. He nodded. North's hand, large and warm, on his shoulder stabilized him, gave him something to lean into. Before he knew it, North had steered him back to the counter and lifted him up to sit on it, as if he were one of the little wooden dolls.

He battled down the flash of grief and now humiliation. "Who was that guy, anyway?" he asked. He needed something else to focus on.

"An old friend," North said. "Captain Aster Bunnymund."

"Captain? He didn't look like a captain."

"He is an enforcer. Police." North patted the pocket where he had hidden the envelope away. "Do not worry about him. He is always grumpy, always stressed. He does not mean what he says."

"Sounded like he meant it." Jack rubbed his head tiredly. The pastries he had eaten so far were not sitting well.

"Bah! Give him time. He will love you!" North squished Jack's cheeks between his hands, and the boy couldn't help but smile. Though North could see it was weak, and there was an edge of pain in his eyes. "You don't look well. I am thinking you should go home, get some more rest." He released Jack's face and dug around in his pocket. "I was too eager, I think. You have been through an ordeal. It was too soon to ask for your help."

Jack shook his head. "No, it's fine…" His weak protest was easy to see through. He found a key pushed into his palm.

"That is the key to the apartment. It also unlocks the store. Do. Not. Lose it." He held Jack's gaze for a moment, letting the seriousness of his words sink in. Once satisfied, he drew back. "Go. Rest. I will see you when we are done here."

"Yessir." Jack slid off the counter, much more carefully than last time, and made his slow way back to the apartment.

He only threw up once.

* * *

**AN: **Updates for this are going to be fairly slow. Life, you know.

**Up Next: **A hummingbird (or is it?) gets into the shop. And what is in the basement?


	3. In which Jack chases a hummingbird

**Chapter Three: In which Jack chases a hummingbird and gets the creeps**

It was two days before Jack was allowed back to work. By then, he had successfully purged his body of the over-old bread and its mold, and slept so much he thought he might never need to sleep again.

He also found himself with a brand new mattress, tucked up against the legs of North and Tooth's bed. It was a precarious place, and not too comfortable when either of the others had to get out of their bed and step over him. He'd been kicked in the head twice already.

The new clothes were gifted to him the day he crawled out of his new blankets and declared he was done being sick. Tooth had already gone down to the shop, leaving North to present a large box full of pants and shirts and socks, and even a pair of shoes.

"Are you sure you can afford all this?" Jack asked, grateful but overwhelmed and guilty.

But North waved him off, saying, "We are family." And that was the end of the discussion.

Jack went to work in a new set of clothes. He tucked his entrusted key deep into a pocket. North sang all the way to the shop, in a language Jack recognized (his father sometimes muttered in his mother tongue) but did not know.

As soon as they arrived, North headed down into the basement to join Tooth, shutting the back door securely behind him.

The store was still coated in a layer of dirt, and Jack was determined to scrub it clean, just to have something productive to do. The battle lines were drawn. Literally. He drew lines all over the shelves and tabletops. He drew smiling faces and stick figures as well. Until he finally came upon a hidden little nook behind a shelf harboring cleaning supplies.

He filled a bucket with water from a spout coming out of the wall outside, wet a rag, and began wiping the shelves one by one, carefully setting aside the dolls and then replacing them as he went. They would have to be washed as well, but he wasn't sure how to go about cleaning their hair and carefully painted faces without ruining them. And the clothes would have to be washed separately.

He left the front door wide open. It was the only source of light, and with it closed the store was nearly pitch black. Even with the light coming in, the store looked dismal, but there was no sense in wasting oil or wax when there were no customers to see the merchandise.

He was only halfway through the shelves on one wall when he heard the thump-thump-thump of North ascending the basement stairs. The man emerged a moment later, with Tooth close behind.

"You should have done this last week," Tooth complained. "If you had just told me, I would have done it."

"You are busy enough," North said. "I did not want to bother you with it."

"I don't mind being busy! I love being busy!"

North heaved a sigh. "Alright, alright. Next time I will let you handle it."

"_Thank you_." Tooth's small feet barely made a sound as she walked quickly to the door. "Now hurry up. The office closes early on Fridays."

"Yes, yes." North hung back and turned to Jack, who watched all of this with an amused grin. "We are going out for a bit. We forgot to pay a bill…"

"_Who_ forgot?" Tooth shouted from outside.

North muttered something, then said loudly, "_I _forgot to pay a bill. We will be back soon. You keep up the good work _up here_." He didn't have to say, _Stay up here, and only up here._ It was implied.

Jack nodded. "Sure thing. I've got plenty to keep me busy." Which meant, _I will try to keep myself distracted so I am not tempted to see what is in the basement._

North smiled, glad to see he was understood, and followed Tooth. Jack could hear them bickering as they walked away.

He went back to his self-appointed task, and tried not to think of the basement. His eyes strayed to the door every so often. Every few seconds, really. But he did not want to anger his only means of support.

He turned his back on the door and diligently scrubbed the shelves. They were going to _sparkle_ when he was through with them.

And then he heard a buzzing.

At first, he thought it was a bee. A large bee. But when he turned, shining green blurred through the room, then stopped and hovered a few feet away from him.

A hummingbird, then. It was bigger than any hummingbird he had ever seen, plumper, but he didn't get a good look at it before it shot off again.

"Oh, no you don't!" He grabbed up the broom and went chasing after it. "You are not going to poop all over this place!"

The bird chirped, and it sounded … upset? Had he offended a bird? That was a silly thought.

He swung the broom around, trying to catch it and scare out the door, but the little thing was too quick and evaded the thick bristles at every turn. The bird led him on a chase all around the store, and Jack laughed. This was fun!

The bird stopped at the back door, and flitted around right there, as if it were waiting for Jack to catch up. Which was ridiculous. But when he brought the broom around to smack it, the bird dove down and zipped through the space between the door and the floor.

"Aw, crap." Jack danced on his feet, unsure what to do. How much trouble could one little hummingbird cause if he just left it down there, let North and Tooth deal with it when they got back? But what if they got mad because he let it get in there in the first place? What was down there was obviously so important to them, they let no one see it.

He glanced at the front door, then the back. He could hear the humming of the bird's wings just on the other side, so … so maybe he didn't have to go down into the basement.

He bit his lip and pulled the door open with a grunt. It was heavy, much heavier than it appeared.

The hummingbird was right there, darting back and forth so fast all he could see was a smudge of color.

"Okay, little guy…"

The bird squeaked, loud and abrupt.

"Girl?"

The bird squeaked twice, sweetly.

"Um…" He shook his head. This was stupid. He'd been alone too long if he thought a bird was communicating with him. "Alright, uh, girl. I need you to come out of there, okay?"

The bird flitted backward, further out of reach.

Jack carefully raised his broom, and the bird chirped angrily and moved deeper into the basement.

"No, no, it's okay!" Jack threw the broom away and put up both hands, placating, all the while thinking he'd gone insane. "I don't want to hurt you. I just want you back outside, where you belong."

The bird stopped zooming back and forth and held still a second. And in that second, Jack saw that she didn't look much like a bird at all. Later, he would blame the poor light for making him think she had a round face with big, almost human eyes, and legs and arms attached to a tiny body.

And then she was gone, down the stairs.

"No!" Jack reached out, then drew back. He shoved his hands through his hair and looked back and forth between the two doors. "Um… Um, um, um…"

There was a chirp down below, and a crash, like many things falling over.

Jack let all of his distress out in a single cry and dashed down the stairs. "I'm going to get in so much trouble, and it's all your fault!"

The stairs ended at a wall, and the railing stopped halfway down. Jack hit the second to last step and turned. The bird – or whatever it was – was zipping around the room, chattering away. There were lamps set up all around, and all of them were lit.

"Geez, North. You wanna burn the place down?" Jack hopped down from the stairs. The birdthing went quiet and hovered right over his head, but it was forgotten as he took in the room.

It wasn't all that remarkable. It looked like any other workspace. There were long tables along the walls, tools scattered over the surfaces and hung on the walls by hooks. Wood of various shapes and sizes was stacked up under the tables and in a large bin. The place smelled of sawdust; the floor was covered in it. A shelf hanging on the wall stored nothing but jars, some empty, other full of a bluish liquid that glowed in the lamplight.

But what drew his attention was the table in the middle of the room. Or rather, what was on it. As he neared, he could see it was a figure carved from wood. A head, torso, arms, legs. No hands or feet. No hair. None of the parts were attached, just laid out like pieces of a skeleton.

And it was big, the size of a child. Maybe a ten year old. The face was serene, eyes closed, painted mouth softly smiling. It was unfinished, but Jack felt this one was male.

There were no dolls this size up in the shop. And nothing upstairs was so finely crafted. He studied the face, and the more he stared, the more lifelike it became. This was not an oversized babydoll. It was a work of art. He could see the lips moving with soft exhales, laugh lines one either side. He could imagine the eyes blinking open to look up at him.

And they were.

The eyes were open. It took him a moment to realize it. He was looking into glass eyes that had been closed a moment before.

The doll's head blinked, and the painted lips curved into a smile.

Jack threw himself backward with a yell. The backs of his legs hit the stairs and he fell onto them. He didn't bother to try and get himself upright, just scrambled up the steps on his hands and knees until he fell through the open door. He slammed it shut and leaned against it, panting and shaking.

He heard a little chirp and looked up to see the birdthing flitting about overhead. "Was that real?" he asked.

The birdthing chirped again. It sounded positive.

Jack shook his head and pushed away from the door. He crawled to the counter and huddled in the corner. The shaking gradually eased away, and his heart slowed. He could breathe again.

"It wasn't real," he told himself.

The birdthing perched on the edge of the counter, looking down at him. The squeaking and tittering got loud and obnoxious, and he glared up at it. Was it scolding him?

"It wasn't real," he repeated. A laugh bubbled up, and he pressed a hand to his head. "Of course it wasn't real. Just … a trick of the light! Shadows. Right?" He looked up at the shiny birdthing – which still looked more like a little feathery person than a bird – and dared it to say otherwise. "Right. I must be tired. Maybe I'm asleep right now." He laughed again and struggled to his feet.

He had just begun to calm again, when he heard North's loud voice, and Tooth's more excitable one, coming up the street. The birdthing shot up into the air and streaked out the door.

They seemed to be in a much better mood now. Both were smiling and going back to forth on what to do about lunch when they stepped into the store. Jack felt a pang of guilt, and when North turned his cheery, bright eyes on him, he felt the old man could see right through him, read his every thought.

"No problems?" North asked.

Jack braved a disarming smile. "Nope. None at all!" And he was certain North saw right through it. It was a trap. He was being tested.

But North just drew back with a nod. "Good! We will be in the basement. Keep up the good work."

His uncle and Tooth disappeared through the back door. Jack slumped over the counter, and waited. Any minute now, they were going to come stomping up the stairs. He didn't think he touched anything, but maybe he had. Maybe one little thing was misplaced. Maybe they saw his footprints in the sawdust. Maybe he knocked something over when he ran out of there. The birdthing _had_ knocked something over. They were going to see that he had been where he was not permitted, and they were going to … to… yell at him, lecture, kick him out?

Long minutes dragged on, and it became obvious that he was not going to be scolded or punished for his crime. The knot of guilt eased, though it did not leave him.

He took up his abandoned rag and went back to moving dolls and wiping down shelves. Only now, the glass eyes staring out at him made him shudder. Some of the dolls had lids that closed if they were placed on their backs. But most did not. As he worked down the shelf, he found himself turning the dolls so they faced the wall.

"That is an interesting display choice."

The voice rolled over him, startling, but not abrupt. It was smooth, deep, dark. Jack twisted from his crouch on the floor and blinked at the sheer amount of _black_ towering over him. The coat and scarf – both black - did nothing to hide how very thin the man was. His hands were folded behind his back, and he lean forward some, curving over Jack.

There was no way to get up and out of the way without either hitting his head on the chin of the man, or looking ridiculous. Jack didn't mind looking ridiculous. He scooted to the side and rose to his full height. He was still much, much smaller than the man, who merely smirked at him.

"Can I help you?" Jack asked. He took a couple steps back, seeking a bit more space for himself.

Except the man moved with him. "_Can_ you?" His voice was laced with sarcasm and amusement.

Oh. One of _those_ people. Jack adopted a scowl, backed up again. "Yeah. That's what I said."

The man clucked his tongue and rolled his shoulders. He looked put off, for about a second. Then pleasant. As pleasant as someone with a shark's face and dead pale skin could look. "You're new." It wasn't a question. He advanced, his hands moving around from behind his back to steeple over his chest.

Jack retreated to the register, to put the solid width of the counter between them. "Yeah. I arrived a few days ago."

"Oh?" The man leaned over the countertop, his arms folded on top. "I heard rumors of North taking on help. I did not expect to find someone so…" He waved a hand around, searching for the word. He settled on, "…precious."

Even with the barrier, Jack felt crowded, suffocated. "Yeah…" He pulled on the hem of his shirt, fidgeted, tried to pull in even breaths though the air felt too thick to draw in. "Look, if you're not here to buy something…"

"Ah. Of course!" The man drew back, his hands raised in supplication. "I meant no harm. I was only curious. This shop is well-known. It is also well-known that North works alone."

Jack huffed in annoyance. First that Bunny guy, now this one. "So I've heard."

"Yes. Well." The man adjusted his scarf and gloves. "We will meet again." He bent at the waist into a small bow. When he rose, he smiled without humor. And then he was gone, sliding out of the store without a sound.

Jack dropped his head on the counter. If this was the way of things in this city, he wondered if he shouldn't have just taken his chances with the villagers.


	4. In which Jack make a delivery

**Chapter Four: In which Jack makes a delivers, and Bunny helps...**

Alone in the shop, Jack leaned against the counter and watched as night settled over the city outside the open door. A storm was moving in, bringing with it the smell of rain. The street seemed older and darker than before, and when night fully set, he realized there were no streetlamps directly outside. He was able to locate only one light: a small lamp by the register, and it cast a dim yellow halo over just that corner of the shop. The dolls' painted faces stood out against the deep shadows, staring blankly at him. He ignored them for about an hour before he felt compelled to move through the store and turn more little faces toward the entrance and walls.

During this self-imposed task, his eyes darted around the room. A puppet might sway, or a shadow might appear to move, and it sent a quiet jolt down his spine. His eyes strayed to the door every so often, where the night's shadows stretched into the shop.

He continued to move slowly through the room, twisting little heads to the side, or moving the whole doll when the head would not move. His hands turned black from the dust he gathered. He wiped the grime onto his pants, then winced, remembering they were new and gifts besides.

While turning the head of a baby doll with huge blue eyes and a head of dirty brown curls, he bumped the shelf, and two princess puppets, twins in matching dresses, slipped and dropped to the floor in a tangle of floppy limbs and string. He bent to retrieve them, and was worrying over how to separate them without damaging them, when a heavy thump from the back of the shop startled him. He turned to see North emerging from the basement, a package wrapped in brown paper in hand.

"Time to close up," his uncle said. "Do you know your way around the city yet?"

Jack shook his head. "No, sir. I've only been here and the apartment since I arrived."

North nodded and moved to where Jack was standing with the tangled up dolls. "No better way to learn than to get out there!" He shoved the package into his nephew's arms, and took the dolls with a mutter of annoyance. "That needs to be delivered tonight. Go left out the door, left at the corner, you'll find the right street."

"But… Uncle, I…" Jack was hustled to the exit by strong hands. He felt the chill as North fairly shoved out the door, into a light drizzle.

"See you at home! I'll leave the door unlocked."

Jack bit off another protest and glanced down at the address on the package. North shut and locked the door behind him, cutting off the only light on the street. He could hear the old man's heavy thumps as he moved to the back of the shop.

With a violent shiver, Jack tugged his jacket firmly under his chin and started walking toward the corner, where the street names were painted onto the sidewalk. Fifth and Gale. He looked left, where Gale Avenue sloped down, vanishing away.

It wasn't late, but the clouds overhead blocked the stars, and the moon was nothing more than a faint glow. As he stepped out of the dark and onto the street, a sense of loss struck him. The city was not a large one, but much bigger than any place he had ever been. Where he stood, it was quiet and dark. Only a few windows were lit, and their light didn't reach the street. The streetlamps were widely spaced, and only a few were lit. It was lonely here.

And as he began to wonder if the entire city was so cold and bleak as this place he found himself, he reached the edge of the slope where Gale Avenue began a long, steep descent. Halfway down, life began.

Bright lights and colors hung over storefronts, people and carts weaved up and down the narrow streets, their horns and bells cutting through the bustle and the steady thumping of drums drifting out from a crowded bar. People roamed the sidewalks, ducking in and out of shops and gathering in small groups under streetlamps or in the alleys. Every so often a motor car would roll through, and people would pause to admire it.

He had never been so far from home. He took in the lights and the noise and drew in a tremulous breath. This was new. It was scary. He was pretty sure he was lost. But there was an undercurrent of excitement. The air thrummed with energy, and he wanted to dive into it, push through the crowds, feel the pulse of the music, talk with the people – even if they were strange and annoying like Bunny and the man in black.

He started walking down into the noise and light, checking names on sidewalks as he went. Once he was down among the throngs of people, it was overwhelming. He couldn't hear anything but a steady thump and voices bending and blurring into a buzz of static, snatches of conversation coming and going, all disconnected. The street was lit up like daylight, lamps and candles glowing everywhere. There were signs that blinked different colors. Electricity. There was none where he was from.

His vision was blocked by a broad chest and a wiry gray beard. He stepped back with an apology, but the body followed him, and a man's face bend into view.

"And who might you be?" The man had a voice thick with gravel, and a smile that seemed too practiced, not sincere at all.

"That's none of your business. Excuse me." Jack stepped away again, only to feel a pressure on his arm. He turned a glare on the hand holding him back.

"Don't be like that. Tell me where you belong, and I'll take you home."

Jack jerked his arm free. "I don't … belong? I don't need an escort, thank you." He waved his package around in front of the man's face when he still would not move. "I've got things to do," he stressed.

The man snorted, then spit to the side. "Delivery boy, huh? What are they giving you? I'll double it."

"Double of nothing is still nothing." He sidestepped, and stomped his foot when his path was blocked – _again_. He drew himself up and poked a finger in the man's meaty chest. "Listen!"

"Martin." This voice was new – but familiar. Rough, lilting, heavily accented, mocking. He turned his head and found himself face to face with a scowl and sharp, green eyes.

The man was suddenly ten feet away, his face plastered with false innocence. "Just helping the kid out, officer," he said. "But I can see he's in good hands now, so I'll be on my way."

"It's Captain," Bunny muttered, but "Martin" was already gone, beating a hasty retreat down the street.

Jack's eyes were still on Bunny when he set his hands on his hips and gave the boy a stern frown.

"You!" Jack blurted out. He brushed a hand quickly through his hair, though the wind and rain quickly ruined his efforts. This was an enforcer, North had said. One that didn't seem to care for him. He didn't want to make a bad impression.

"Yes, me." The scowl deepened. "Jack, was it? What are you doing out here? North's let you go?"

"I'm sorry?" His brows drew together as Bunny moved closer. What was it with people and personal boundaries in this place?

Bunny leaned in so close he could feel breath on his face, looked right into his eyes. Jack shifted uncomfortably and turned his face away, only to have Bunny grab him by the chin and force his head back.

"Back off," Jack growled. He jerked free and shoved, sending Bunny backward. "What is your problem? You know, I didn't need your help."

Bunny scoffed, but simply brushed a hand down his chest, as if wiping away Jack's touch. "You say you're North's nephew, huh?"

"Yeah. So?"

Bunny stared him down a moment longer, then tossed his head. "Nothing. Where are you staying?"

Jack shrugged, pressing his lips together.

Bunny gave him a curious, annoyed look. "What does that mean?"

"It means…" He shrugged again. "It means I don't know you, you've made it clear you don't like me – hell if I know why – and I'm not going to tell you where I'm staying." He looked away, and turned his gaze to the ground. "You're an asshole."

Bunny snorted, and he chanced a glance at the man. He was obviously amused, a smirk firmly in place. "I'm okay with that. I already know where you work." His eyes drifted down to the package, and he darted forward to snatch it out of Jack's hands. "What's this?"

"H-hey!" He lurched forward to take it back, but Bunny was taller than him, and simply twisted out of the way and held it up out up over his head.

After reading the address, he made a disgusted face and dropped the package back in Jack's arms so suddenly, he almost didn't catch it. "You don't want to go there."

"I have to." He hugged the package close, protectively. "Why? Do you know where it is?"

"Of course I know where it is. Everyone does." Bunny considered him a moment, and shook his head. "Most everyone." He pulled in a deep breath, and let it go with a heady sigh. "Damn it. I suppose it can't be helped. Can't have you getting lost or hurt. North would have a conniption." He snatched Jack by the arm and pulled him down into the busy street. "I can't believe he sent you out here, alone and looking like a lost puppy."

"I don't look like a lost puppy…"

Bunny's grip was strong, and Jack tripped a few times trying to keep up as he weaved quickly around the many people massing the sidewalks.

Bunny laughed. "Right. You looked terrified."

"I did not." He frowned and fell silent for a moment, until they turned a corner and started up a smaller, quieter street. "Where are we going?"

"The address on your package." Bunny stopped at a blue building crushed between two identical red and yellow buildings. There were potted flowers on the steps leading up to the door, also blue. There were no windows on the floor level, and those above it were large and barred with thick iron.

Jack stopped with him and withdrew his arm from the iron grip. "This is it?" He looked at the address on the package, and the numbers on the blue house. They were the same.

"I'll stay back here," Bunny said. There was something off about his voice. Something harder, colder.

His behavior was making Jack nervous. He climbed the stairs slowly and gave the door three weak knocks. He reasoned that if no one heard him at the door, then he could excuse himself and go back to North with the package and try again when there was daylight. There was a long enough pause that he thought he was successful in his plan, and he was about to turn to leave when the sound of a bolt sliding free caught his attention.

He held his breath and watched the knob on the door twist around, and the door itself swung open. Yellow light spilled out onto the porch, and he blinked against the flood of brightness. There must have been a hundred candles lit in the foyer alone.

A girl was standing in the doorway. She was tiny, little more than a toddler, with a tangle of blonde hair obscuring half her face and knotted down her back. A pretty gown hung off her little body, at least two sizes too large. Her gaze was blank. She looked up at him, but didn't seem to see him. It was disturbing.

"I...uh…I have this for you." Jack hastily held the package out to the girl. Maybe he should have asked for her mother or father, but the dead expression in her eyes – or, the one he could see – made him all the more eager to get away from there.

The girl blinked once and looked at the wrapped packaged. She moved slowly. It was agonizing, how long it took for her arms to lift, for her fingers to stretch out and curl around the package and pull it toward her. Once she had it, Jack backed away. She lifted her gaze, over his shoulder, and stood perfectly still.

He looked back, and saw that she had fixed her vacant stare on Bunny. And Bunny was glaring back. They didn't move for several heartbeats, and then the girl dropped her head and took a step back.

She never said a word. The door shut, cutting away the light.

Jack scrambled down the stairs and back to Bunny. "Who is she?"

Bunny didn't move. He watched the door for a few seconds more, his expression unreadable. Then he grabbed Jack by the arm and walked him back toward the street. "Never mind her. Come on."

He tried to yank his arm free, and almost succeeded, but Bunny fisted his hand around his sleeve and turned a glare so fierce on him, he didn't think of trying to get away again. "You know her, don't you?" But he couldn't leave it alone. "The way you looked at each other, you must know her somehow."

"Doesn't matter if I do."

Bunny led him up the busy street and around a corner, dragging him into a wide alley. A few people loitered here, huddled away from the cold. An old woman crouched by the garbage bins, blowing into her hands. A younger woman hovering the mouth of the alley, checking up and down the street, waiting for someone. And a man, maybe mid-twenties, sitting against the wall with his hands between his knees, staring forward with a slack-jawed expression.

Bunny pulled Jack deeper into the alley, toward a black door set into the wall of a gray brick building. He fished a key out of his pocket and unlocked the door.

"What is this place?" Jack planted his feet and resisted going any further as Bunny pushed the door open.

"Home," Bunny said. He started to pull Jack through the doorway, but the boy leaned back, using his weight against the tugging. Bunny narrowed his eyes and gave a good yank before releasing Jack's arm. "Or you can stay out here in the cold. I don't care. I only want to talk to you."

Jack hesitated. The woman warming her hands coughed, and the man with the slack jaw was looking right at him. He bit his lip, and hurried into the building.

Bunny led him up a flight of stairs to the third floor, and to an apartment at the end of a short hall. He shared the floor with three other tenants, one of whom was just leaving and passed them with a grumbled greeting as he struggled with the lock on his door.

The apartment was small, and it was obvious he lived alone. Jack stepped over a pile of unidentifiable garbage when he entered, and navigated around various other articles of clothing as he was led to the couch. A small counter piled high with papers and unopened mail was all that separated the living area from the kitchen, and he could see two doors on the other side of the room, both closed. He assumed one was the bedroom, and the other a bathroom.

"Do you want a drink?" Bunny was already in the kitchen, filling a kettle with water. "Tea?"

"No. Thank you." He gingerly moved a shirt and a pair of worn socks off one side of the couch and sat on the edge of the cushion with his hands folded between his knees.

Bunny shrugged and set the kettle on the stove, but left it cold. "Fine. So your name is Jack, and you work for North." He moved back into the living room and shoved everything off the couch so he could sit at the other end. "You can try relaxing. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Yes." He scooted back on the couch, but remained leaning forward over his knees. "Is this an interrogation? North said you were police. I thought we were over this part. He's my uncle, I just moved into the area, blah blah blah…"

"He's popular around here. Everyone knows him."

"So I've heard." Jack didn't look convinced. "His shop looks like it hasn't been touched in ages."

Bunny gave him another long, searching stare. "Do you even know what he does for a living?"

Jack's brows furrowed. "I would say he makes and sells dolls, but most of them are so old they're rotting." His hands went up to his face and he rubbed his forehead with a groan. "He probably can't even pay me."

Bunny was silent for a moment, just watching him. He felt the man was searching for something, but he didn't want to ask. "Why?" he asked. "Why come _here_?"

He held Jack's eyes with his own, and Jack felt compelled to answer. "He's my uncle. I have nowhere else to go."

"There's always somewhere else to go." He sat back again, kicking his feet up on the space between them. "You don't seem very familiar with your uncle's business. How well do you know him?"

"I don't." A sigh, long and weary. "I've only met him once, and that as a long time ago."

Bunny pursed his lips. "And you don't have any other family, anyone else to take you in?"

"No." He looked away, his fingers twisting tightly together. "I don't know why I'm telling you all this."

Bunny tipped his head to the side with a shrug. "Don't worry. I said I wanted to talk, didn't I?" Jack could hear the smile in his voice, and feel the couch shift as he stood. "You can sleep on the couch. There's bread in the cabinet if you get hungry. Don't drink the water unless you boil it first."

"I have a place to sleep. My uncle…" He started to rise, but Bunny held out a hand.

"It's getting late. You don't want to be out there when the shops close down. You can go back in the morning. Don't worry about it."

Bunny pressed his hands to his lower back and leaned until it cracked, then moved toward the door.

"Are you leaving?"

"Yeah. I'm still on duty."

"You're leaving me here. Alone?"

"Yep. There's nothing here I'll miss if you steal it, and nothing worth more than a few dollars. I'm not worried."

"But … why?"

"North's a good friend. Delusional, but good." Bunny adjusted something hidden under his untucked shirt. A weapon, Jack realized. A gun, most likely. "You mean something to him."

"So if I weren't his nephew, you'd just leave me to rot?"

"Pretty much. I'm off. Be good." And before he could say a word, Bunny was gone.

Jack felt uneasy in the quiet room, and entertained ideas of just getting up and leaving. Bunny wouldn't miss him, and the enforcer knew where he worked. But the hiss of wind through the kitchen window changed his mind. He scanned the floor for something bigger than a shirt, and found a small throw under the couch. He had to curl to half his size to fit under it, and eventually tossed it back on the floor. The apartment was warm enough that he didn't really need it. Not if he wore his jacket.

The couch was not very comfortable. The cushions were old and lumpy and it smelled like beer and ashes. Outside, he could hear the wind and horns and sometimes voices – laughing, yelling, fighting. He left the light burning, but could still see the flash of color through the thin curtains on the single window. It was an hour or more before the day caught up to him and he fell into a fitful sleep.

* * *

**Up Next**: Pitch is a bad driver, but he has party invitations.


	5. In which Jack doesn't watch his step

**Chapter Five: In which Jack doesn't watch where he is going...**

Jack jerked awake, chest heaving with every breath, an aborted scream dying on his lips. He felt weighted down, suffocated, and wrestled with the blanket that had become tangled around him. His wide eyes darted around, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings, and it took a moment to remember where he was.

"What was that?"

The voice was behind him. He threw the blanket across the couch, distinctly remembering that he had fallen asleep without one, and twisted around to see Captain Bunny leaning over the kitchen counter.

"Bad dream," he sighed. His hand was still shaking as he pushed it through his hair.

"Dream?" There was a heavy note of disbelief. Bunny came around the counter with two cups of something steaming and shoved one into Jack's hands. "What would _you_ have to dream about?"

Jack curled his fingers around the mug, and glared up at the officer. The tone of the question was mocking, and he didn't like how "you" was stressed. "What do most people dream about? I don't know, flying puppies, talking flowers, elves and yetis living together in peace…" He took a sip of the drink. It was tea, and bitter.

"And that's what had you flailing around? Flying puppies?"

Jack adverted his gaze to the tea with a small shrug. "No. It's just … some reoccurring thing."

"And?" Bunny sat on the other end of the couch, forcing Jack to curl his legs up to avoid being sat on. He leaned forward, as if he were actually interested.

"And what?"

Bunny rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "And what was the dream?"

Jack eyed the man warily, then shrugged uneasily. "Nothing. Just a dream. People dream. It's not a big deal." He stood up and took the two steps needed to set his full mug of tea on the countertop. "I should get back to North. What time is it, anyway?"

Bunny tipped his cup back and swallowed down every drop. "'Bout nine," he said, setting the cup on the floor and rocking to his feet. "I'll come with you."

"Just point me in the right direction." Jack was practically pleading. "I can find it on my own."

"I'm sure you can." His voice said the opposite. "But I have something to discuss with North."

"That doesn't mean we need to walk back together." Jack started for the door. "Look, thanks for last night, but…"

"I'm coming with you." He adjusted the gun at his hip, barely visible under his shirt and jacket. Jack was sure it was a deliberate move, meant to cow him into compliance.

And it worked. He sighed and reached for the doorknob. "Wouldn't want to upset North, right?"

"Right." Bunny joined him at the door, and together they stepped out into the hall. "Martin could still be lurking around. Snatching dummies off the street is what he does best."

"I'm not a dummy," Jack protested, following the officer down the stairs.

Bunny stopped and turned to give Jack another of those long, penetrating stairs. When he resumed walking, it was with a mutter of, "Damn it, North."

Whatever that meant, Jack didn't care. Bunny was a bag full of contradictions, and he didn't even want to begin trying to understand the guy. Nice, almost pleasant, one moment, and a complete asshole the next… It wasn't worth the energy.

He followed behind the tall captain for a block, and when they reached a corner, Bunny grabbed him by the arm and hauled him up the adjoining road, and pushed and shoved him around the people bustling all around them. He did it again at the next corner.

The next – last – time Bunny tried to physically move him – this time across a street – Jack shoved him and took several steps away.

"Stop grabbing me!" he yelled. A few people paused to see what the commotion was, but then moved along, unconcerned. "I can follow just fine without you pushing me around."

Bunny had put his hands up and started to say something, but Jack didn't want to hear it. He shoved his hands in his pockets and started across the street.

He ignored Bunny's shout, tuned it out completely. If he weren't listening, he would have understood it was not an angry shout, but a scared shout.

Which was why he didn't realize there was an automobile barreling toward him, zigging and zagging and bouncing all over, until it was almost upon him. The thing was honking, but he didn't distinguish it over the clamor of the waking city, just filtered it away as noise.

Now vehicles such as this were not common. Very rare, and only afforded by the upper crust. Before coming to the city, Jack had only seen one when a gentleman came rolling through his little town on his way to some summer cottage. He had been appalled that no one in the town knew – or had ever seen – a lightbulb.

So Jack didn't check the street, and he didn't blame himself for not knowing there was a possibility of some crafted metal and wood contraption striking him down on the street. He stopped walking and turned his head in time to watch, wide eyed, as a garish red vehicle ground to a halt six inches from his midsection. His heart, when it resumed beating, was thundering against his chest as he tried to gulp in air. The familiar face staring back at him was just as shocked.

It was him … the man in black.

The beast rattled and then went still and silent.

Jack found himself grabbed from behind and spun around. He stared up at Bunny, who shook him. "You idiot! What were you thinking?"

Jack's mouth worked, but nothing came out. His mind was blank. Bunny gave him another shake.

"I don't think that's helping, Captain." The man in black was right behind him, his smooth voice rolling over him. And then there was a hand on his head. "Are you alright?"

Jack ducked away from the man's hand and shrugged off Bunny's hold on his shoulders. "I'm fine," he started, but then his knees buckled, and everything went a bit fuzzy. He blinked, and found himself supported by a thin body and long arms. Oh, god.

The man chuckled, and he could feel it vibrate at every point of contact. "Are you sure?"

Jack nodded dumbly.

Bunny scoffed and wrapped a hand around Jack's forearm. "He'll be fine. I've got him. You can just…"

The man in black didn't relinquish his hold, and Jack squirmed between them. "Where are you going? I can give you a ride."

"No thank you." Bunny jerked, hard, and Jack was suddenly free of the man's hold. But now shoved back and trapped with the officer's arm across his shoulders, a barrier between him and the man in black.

The man brushed a hand down his black coat, buttoned all the way to his neck, and bowed stiffly. "Very well. I won't trouble you further." A gloved hand sank into a deep pocket, and he pulled out a square of paper. "I hope you accept my sincerest of apologies." He held the paper out toward Jack. "I'm having a small get-together at my estate. Do come, and let me make this up to you."

Bunny huffed and started to push Jack back, away, but Jack stretched forward and snatched the paper. Not really because he wanted it, or wanted to encourage the man in black, but because he knew it would irritate Bunny.

The man in black smiled and retreated to his vehicle. Bunny jostled Jack all the way to the sidewalk, muttering curses. He made a grab for the paper once, and Jack slapped his hand.

It was an invitation. The lettering was plain, and the embellishments elaborate. It had nothing more than the man's name and address. "Pitch Black," Jack read. It was fitting.

"He's trouble," Bunny said. "You stay away from him. You don't want to get tangled up with the likes of him."

Jack shoved the invitation in his pocket with a snort. "Seems I don't want to get tangled up with anyone around here."

Bunny was silent a moment, then said, with far less irritation, "Stick with North. He'll do good by you."

When they arrived at the shop, Bunny called North up from the basement and took him outside. Jack, calmer now than before, but still shaken, settled onto the stool behind the counter and lay his head down. He couldn't heard anything more than murmurs of their voices, and after a while – he had no idea how long – North returned.

He turned his head to look up at his uncle, who stopped beside him with a sad smile. "Everything okay?" he asked.

North lay a huge hand over his head. Jack didn't mind so much when it was North who touched him. There was affection in it, unlike Bunny or the man in black – Pitch Black.

"Everything is fine," North said. Jack was not convinced. "You must be more careful, yes?"

Oh. So Bunny had told on him. "I will. I'm sorry." Jack sat up, but still could not look his uncle in the eye. "I didn't mean to worry you."

North nodded, gave Jack's hair a little tussle. "You father loved you, so much."

Jack tipped his head to side, wondering where that came from. "I … I know…"

An old woman entered the store. The moment was broken. North took his hand back to face the woman.

She walked tall and confident, and her dress was very fine. Her hair was still brown, though streaked with gray. Jack thought she looked strong, and was maybe in her mid-fifties.

North spread his arms wide with a joyful smile. "Mrs. Bennett! Why are you here so soon?"

"I came to check on the progress of my order. You said three weeks." She folded her hands before her, and though she was much shorter than North, she managed to appear as if she were looking down on him.

"It has only been two, my dear Mrs. Bennett," North replied. "Your Jamie is not yet ready. But he is close. Perhaps he will be ready sooner than expected."

"That would be ideal." She inclined her head, and directed her gaze to Jack with the same haughty countenance. "Sophie told me about you. She thought you were pretty." Her lips twitched, like she wanted to smile, but refused.

Jack did smile. It was hard to think the strange little girl had thought anything about him at all. "Tell Sophie I think she's pretty too."

She dipped her head again. "Your name?"

"Jack."

Both fine, thin brows rose. "Just Jack?"

"Jackson Frost, ma'am."

"Better. I'm sure we will see more of each other, Mr. Frost." She turned back to North. "I approve. He's a good choice."

North chuckled and escorted Mrs. Bennett from the shop, promising to inform her when her order was ready. When she was well and gone, he thumped back toward the basement door. "As if I need her approval," he muttered. "You are family! Of course you are a good choice!"

Jack watched fondly as North disappeared through the door.

* * *

**AN**: This one is a bit small, but the next part, I think, needs to be its own chapter. Chapters 3 & 4 have been lightly edited. I don't think anything vitally important was added or removed.

I've had some questions about the setting/period of this fic. It's not really based on any real-world timeline or place (I'm not doing a whole lot of research here!) I kind of see this taking place at a time when invention is on the rise, and the world is pushing into a new era. But this little city, and the places surrounding it, is lagging behind. They are slowly filtering in "modern" conveniences, like electricity, and phones, and the odd automobile, but most of the city is stuck in the past. Only those places that can afford it have made the switch from candles to lightbulbs.

**Up Next: **Katherine, and Jack is further disenchanted with the city and its people.


	6. In which Jack and Katherine take a walk

**Chapter Six: In which Jack and Katherine take a walk...**

The following day was uneventful. North and Tooth headed off to work as soon as they were ready, and Jack promised to follow from under the safety of his blankets, where he would not have to see them changing out of their sleep clothes. They were both in the basement when he arrived at the Dingle and Dongle Dollshop ten minutes later. He spent the entire morning scrubbing down shelves and turning all of the dolls' gazes away.

Katherine wandered in around mid-day, all smiles and curiosity. He thought she had come for North, and was surprised when she corrected him.

"I wanted to check in on you," she said. "Are you settling in alright?"

"Sure," he replied, perhaps too quickly because she gave him an odd look. "I guess so," he amended. "I haven't been here long, and I haven't really seen much except here and North's apartment."

"Oh, well why don't I show you around? You haven't had lunch yet, have you?"

She danced on her feet and the look she gave him was hopeful, imploring, and Jack found it hard to say no. "I'm supposed to be watching the shop…" he started to say. But no one had watched the shop before he came along, and an hour or two away probably wouldn't hurt anything.

"He won't even notice you were gone," Katherine said, voicing his thoughts.

He nodded. "Okay. Let me leave a note, at least."

The note was left on the countertop. Jack and Katherine left the shop together. Once on the sidewalk, Katherine asked, "Where would you like to go?"

Jack grinned and bowed. "I defer to you."

Katherine's smile was broad and happy, and she started off down the direction Jack had gone the night North sent him away with a delivery. In the daylight, it did not appear so lonely. The old paint peeling from older buildings lent the street a bit of color. There were more people out and about. Some were engaged in conversation. A woman was sweeping the steps up to her door. A boy was dragging a cart full of papers from person to person, door to door, offering to sell them. But most of the people were moving, walking quickly to wherever.

The area that had, before, been a beacon of color and light and noise, was now just a simple marketplace. People wandered into and out of stores and to the booths that had been set up.

Jack felt a pang in his chest, and a twist in his stomach. It was the same kind of market his father sold their vegetables from. He might have even come to this very place, had parked his little wagon by one of these booths.

"Are you hungry?" Katherine asked.

Jack snapped out of his thoughts and offered her a forced smile. "Famished!"

"Great! I know a place."

She took them down an alley, away from the market, and around a corner onto another street. This seemed to be the place for restaurants and food, as just about every door led to some kind of eatery, and the smells were so many and overwhelming, Jack couldn't pick out any specific one.

As they walked, they passed a place the specialized in soups. Another, bread. Then a sandwich shop. A butcher peddling both raw and cooked meats. Jack, who was used to growing his own food on the farm, and even slaughtering their own meat (mostly chickens), or just buying it from another farm, found it all strange and fascinating. And so convenient!

The only thing that struck a bad chord were the signs hanging from doors and perched in windows. Though they were worded differently, penned differently, designed differently, they all said the same thing.

"No Service for Animates"

"Dummies not Permitted"

He wanted to ask Katherine what it meant, but she stopped at a storefront window with paper pasted over the glass and boards nailed over the door. There was a notice on the door that he didn't read, and letters crudely painted over the paper. "Dummy Lover".

She pressed a hand to her mouth.

Jack peeled the paper back from the window and peeked in. There were tables and chairs scattered inside, some overturned. And a stain on the floor that he hoped wasn't what it appeared to be. But spots of the same color were spattered over the furniture and walls as well, dashing that hope.

"Guess they're closed," he muttered. He rubbed the paper back into place. Katherine had tears in her eyes, so he moved closer. "Do you know the owner?"

She nodded. "He's my friend, and so generous. His door is always open to the likes of us. So few are."

Jack hoped, then, that the stain inside belonged to someone else. "The likes of us?"

Katherine grabbed his hand and tugged him back to the alley. "I need to tell Ombric what has happened!"

They were practically running by the time they came out the other side and started quickly weaving through the people flocking toward the stalls. Shoulders were bumped frequently, and angry words followed them up the street.

They were almost clear of the congestion when Jack slammed into someone who was not content to just yell at his retreating back. The man was not all that big. A little taller than Jack, but wiry thin. By the cut and care to his clothes, he was rich.

Jack found himself shoved back, and Katherine's hold on his hand dropped.

"You dare…" the man sneered and advanced.

And then Katherine was between them, arms open and facing the man. "Please. It was a mistake. We meant no harm."

Jack saw it coming, but couldn't move fast enough. The sound of a slap rang out over the street like a firecracker. People stopped to stare as the man withdrew his hand, but only to grab Katherine by the shoulders and toss her to the side. She tripped trying to catch her balance and landed in a heap.

Jack didn't hesitate, didn't even pause long enough to aim. He threw his fist forward and caught the man between the eyes. The man staggered back, clutching at his nose. His eyes were wide, surprised, and then outraged.

Jack didn't wait around. He bent to help Katherine to her feet, and dragged her after him, ignoring how horrified she looked. It wasn't directed at that man, but at Jack.

He also ignored the shouts that followed them. Shouts to stop running, to stay put. Other shouts – names, obscenities, curses. He didn't understand. Hadn't those people seen what happened?

No one followed.

When the shouts faded to nothing and all they got for their dashing were curious looks and disapproving frowns, they stopped. Katherine spun on him and poked him in the chest with a finger.

"What were you thinking?" she cried. "You'll be lucky if he doesn't call the enforcers on you!"

"On me!" Jack swiped her hand away. "He hit you! He's lucky all I did was punch him! You could at least say thank you!"

Katherine drew back, her tone settled to something a little less angry, but still upset. "Thank you."

Jack blew out a sigh.

"But you shouldn't have."

Jack threw his hands up. "You know what, never mind. I'm going to work." He stepped around her and started forward, hands shoved deep in his pockets. His fingers found a thick piece of paper in one. Pitch's invite.

"Jack, I'm sorry!" Katherine chased after him, taking two steps for every one of his long strides. "I just don't want to see you hurt. Or worse! You don't understand how things work here!"

"Throwing girls around and hitting them is normal?"

Katherine didn't say anything at first, then hesitantly muttered, "…well…"

"I don't accept that. I'm not going to."

"You can't just decide…"

"I can. I am."

She said, "Jack…" but he quickened his pace so she fell behind.

He arrived at the shop ahead of her and saw that his note was still where he left it. "You shouldn't walk home alone," he said.

"It's daylight. I can make it on my own just fine." She didn't give him a chance to reply, just spun on her heel and ran away.

For hours after, he felt guilty for not going after her, and for being angry in the first place. She was right that he didn't understand this city. But the more he learned, the less he wanted to know.

It was nearing sunset when he gave up on his half-assed attempts at cleaning shelves and retreated to the counter. He hopped on the top and lay back on it, eyes on the ceiling. Maybe there was something he could do for Katherine. Not an apology – he wasn't sorry for defending her. A peace offering.

His hands snuck back into their pockets. His fingers found the invite again. He pulled it out and held it up over his head. He studied the plain text, the decorative border. He remembered Bunny's warning – "He's trouble. You stay away from him."

Bunny was a jerk, but he probably knew what he was talking about. Besides, Pitch made Jack uncomfortable in all the wrong ways.

He flipped the card over, intending to toss it away. There was something written on the back. Elegant cursive script. Penned by hand.

_They're lying to you. I have the answers you seek._

He hesitated, then put the invite back in his pocket.

* * *

**Up Next: **Will Jack attend Pitch's party after all?


	7. In which Jack goes to a party

**Chapter Seven: In which Jack goes to a party...**

It took two days for Jack's altercation with the man on the street came back to him, in the form of Captain Bunnymund marching into the doll shop and backing the startled boy against a table.

"Are you incapable of staying out of trouble?"

"Ah…" Jack snapped his mouth shut, then open again. Then shut tight.

"That was Francis Gard you hit. Do … do you even know who that is?"

Jack's blank stare was answer enough.

"His father is Lady Seraphina's personal advisor. They have enormous influence…"

Jack looked on.

Bunny drew back, affording him a little space. It was clear Jack had no idea the significance of his actions. "You can't go around hitting _people_, Jack."

"He hit Katherine! What was I sup…"

"It doesn't matter." Bunny pinched the bridge of his nose and turned away from the shocked, betrayed expression on Jack's face. "I convinced him not to press charges, but you have _got_ to…"

"_I_ have to…?" Jack lurched away from the table. His posture was rigid, his breath quick with anger. "What kind of police are you? What about him? What? You're going to just let him get away with it? Maybe _I_ want to press charges?"

Bunny dropped his hand, fixed Jack with a long, unreadable stare. The kind where he seemed to be looking _through_, rather than _at_. Jack's anger stuttered and died, and it took all of his willpower to stay defiantly in place and stare right back, instead of back away or run behind the safety of the counter.

"North hasn't told you anything, has he?" Bunny asked, quietly, and it didn't really feel like he was actually asking Jack.

Jack shifted on his feet, and his arms crossed over his chest. His brows drew together, confused. Uneasy.

Bunny sighed. "Listen, you need to lay low for a bit. Don't do anything else stupid. You're going to wind up in someone's trash can if you keep drawing attention to yourself."

"What does that mean?" Jack's attempt to sound irritated was too shaky, too tinged with apprehension.

"There are rules here, Jack. And no one is going to be sympathetic if you rock the boat. You have to learn your place," Bunny said, and Jack could find nothing in his tone that wasn't compassionate.

"I thought … thought people like you were supposed to protect…" Jack's arms wound tighter around his torso, fingers pulling at the fabric of his shirt, shoulders hunched.

"I _am_ protecting you." Bunny pulled a watch from his pocket and grunted. "I'll come back tomorrow. Tell North I have a lot of words for him, and none of them are pretty."

Bunny left in a hurry, and Jack tucked himself away behind the counter. He wanted to be angry. He tried to conjure up those feelings. He wanted resentment, and defiance. He did not want to bow or bend or break to a place that would see innocent people hurt without retribution.

But all he felt was helplessness in the face of something much, much bigger. It closed in on all sides, squeezed and pressed, while filling him with confusion and questions, the biggest of them being _why_? Why did he not matter?

Bunny gave him odd, long, unnerving appraisals. He said Jack didn't belong here. He argued with North about it. People on the street had looked on Jack with disgust. He had thought it was because he and Katherine had been running full tilt through a crowd of them, but thinking back on it, he wasn't so sure. The way that one man had asked where he belonged. How no one respected his space.

He reached into his pocket, pulled out the invite with Pitch's name on it. _I have the answers you seek, _it said. There was a date, in small print, along the bottom. Today's date. And sunset.

He was becomming somewhat familiar with the surrounding streets, and how the city was laid out. The address on the invite was unknown to him, but the street it was on – Butterfly Lane – was several blocks up, almost on the edge of the city.

He left work early. He didn't want North to catch him back at the apartment, changing into the nicest of his new clothes. Even so, he didn't look like much. Definitely not rich or important, and he feared he would stand out terribly.

So much for not drawing attention to himself.

He set off on foot, the sun setting behind him. It took nearly twenty minutes to reach Butterfly Lane, and by then the lamps were being lit by men on either side of the street. The one he passed by smiled and gave him a nod.

He turned left, and the numbered streets declined. The number on the house indicated it might be on the tenth block, which was another twenty minutes of walking. He was ready to tear off his shoes and chuck them in a bush by the time he reached a large, heavy, black iron gate at the end of the road. Beyond that was a garden, and a walking path, all of it brightly lit with lamps – both flames and electric. At the end of the path was the largest house he had ever laid eyes on. Every window was lit up, and he could just make out shadowed bodies moving around inside, on all four floors.

This was it.

He tried the gate, but it was locked. How was anyone supposed to…?

Someone was coming down the path. A woman, with a slight limp, wearing a black uniform. _Pants_. She stopped at the gate, her hands folded behind her back. In white lettering "Onyx" was stitched onto one shoulder of her jacket. "Do you have an invitation?" she asked, her voice as dull as dirt.

"Um, yeah." He dug the bit of stiff paper out of his pocket and passed it through the bars of the gate.

The woman glanced at it, sniffed, and stepped to the side to unlock the gate with a key she produced from her jacket pocket. Jack pulled his hand back as the gate opened away from him, just enough for him to step through.

"Follow me," she said. She turned sharply and started up the path, gloved hands folded behind her.

Jack trailed after, hands in his pockets, and desperately telling himself this was not a bad idea. "So, is Onyx your name?" he asked.

He received no reply. As they neared the house, he could hear violins and a piano and the murmur of voices. Onyx opened the door, and the sounds were louder, almost overwhelming. She stood to the side and swept a hand out, inviting him into the mansion.

Jack smiled at her awkwardly, tipping his head, and moved into the foyer. Onyx closed the door behind him, said dryly, "I will show you to Master Black."

He noticed her limp again. It seemed one leg was longer than the other, and heavier. Every other step made a hard thump on the tiled floor.

She brought him out of the entry hall through a set of double doors directly ahead, and into a grand ballroom. Every wall was lined with glowing torches, and several electric chandeliers hang down from the ceiling. The music was coming from here, in the form of a small orchestra set off to the side. There were people all over, talking and eating and drinking and laughing. Some glanced his way, but with indifference or only mild curiosity.

Many, if not most, were dressed in clothes as simple as his own, or worse. A few were wearing little more than rags.

Pitch was on the far side of the room, his tall, thin frame towering over everyone. He, too, was dressed down. A simple white shirt and a long black coat, black pants that made his legs look like twigs.

They were only halfway across the ballroom when a man reeking of alcohol staggered into Jack's path. "Are you him?" he asked. "You are, aren't you?"

"I… What?" Jack reeled back.

"North's boy!" The man grabbed him by the shoulders. "Are you?"

"I, um… I guess…" Jack tried to dislodge the hands with a shrug. When that didn't work, he reached up and removed them. One of those hands was all wood, with joints in the fingers. He dropped it like it was hot.

Around them, those nearest began to whisper and cast glances their way. Onyx appeared next to him and took his elbow. "Mister North has other obligations," she droned, steering him away.

"It's Frost, actually." He tried to free his arm, but her grip held fast.

She sniffed, and said no more.

From across the room, Pitch was watching them. Jack's mouth went dry and he felt cold with fear. Bunny's warning echoed in his head. He wasn't supposed to be here. He shouldn't be here.

Pitch strode forward when they were near, and waved Onyx away. She bowed deeply and vanished into the crowd. More people were looking, hiding whispers behind hands, pressing in to get a little closer.

"You came," Pitch said, and there was genuine surprise under the words.

"Yeah." Jack eyed the tall man, the people all around. The music was still going, but the rumble of voices had died down. "I, um… I should…" Go. He should go.

But Pitch drew him forward with an arm around his shoulders, gently pushed him to the back of the room, to a glass door. "I'm glad," he said as they walked. A man with wooden shoes opened the door for them. The door shut as soon as they passed through, and a curtain was drawn, affording them privacy from curious eyes.

They were on a small balcony. The garden – mostly shaped bushed and patches of flowers - sloped down and away, into a treeline barely visible in the distance. There was a bench to one side, and a table with chairs on the other.

"Did you tell people I was coming?" Jack asked.

Pitch pulled a chair from the table. "Not at all. Rumors spread quickly among us. Please, sit." He moved around the table to take the remaining chair.

Jack hovered near the table, tucked his hands up under his arms. "No, thank you. I'm fine." He looked anywhere but at Pitch. "Why would anyone care? Because North's my uncle?"

Pitch pursed his lips. A brow rose. Slowly, he said, "Yes. That has quite a bit to do with it. It puts you in a unique and valuable position."

"Why? What position?" His eyes snapped to Pitch's face. He flinched as the tall man rose up from his seat with a sigh.

"I assume, by now, you've experienced it. You've been discarded. Pushed aside. Do you feel that people treat you differently, poorly? Even with your uncle's fame behind you, you are insignificant. Yes?"

Jack swallowed, nodded hesitantly. "Something like that. I'm not from around here, and I don't have any money, so I…"

Pitch clucked his tongue. "Oh, Jack. It's got nothing to do with money, and most everyone is a stranger in some way. It is because of what you are."

Jack cocked his head to the side. "What…? But … I'm not anything. I'm just some guy from a little village…"

His confusion was mirrored on Pitch, who stepped in close. Too close. A long-fingered hand snuck under his chin and forced him to look up, gripped painfully hard in warning when he tried to pull away. "Tell me, Jack. How old are you?"

"Eighteen in August. Let go."

Pitch didn't let go. "Eighteen. And your childhood? Was it a good one?"

"I…" He jerked his chin free and stumbled backward, but Pitch followed. A hand closed over his shoulder, yanked him forward, and the other hand caught him by the back of the head, curled into his snow white hair, and pulled so hard he winced.

"Tell me," Pitch snarled.

"I don't know. I don't know!" Jack pushed his hands against a thin chest. "Stop it!"

"Tell me!" With the command came another pull on his hand, bending him backward.

"I said I don't know!" Tears stung his eyes. Pain. Fear. "I don't remember! I don't remember anything!"

He was released so suddenly, he toppled backward and fell onto balcony's stone floor. He caught himself on his hands, felt the skin scrape and break. His left wrist twisted. He scrambled backward until his back hit the bench.

Pitch watched him impassively. "You remember nothing?"

"There was an accident. I fell through the ice and nearly died. When I woke, everything was gone. Everything." It all just fell out in a rush. If he gave Pitch what he wanted, maybe he could get out of here in one piece. His wrist ached, his hands stung, the back of his head was beginning to throb. "Can I go? I want to go."

Pitch blinked, as if shocked by the question. "Of course you may go. You are not a prisoner." He swept an arm to the glass door. "I will have Onyx show you to the gate."

Using the bench for leverage, Jack found his feet. He moved along the wall, holding his injured wrist close to his chest, never taking his eyes off the dark, imposing figure. In turn, Pitch's lips quirked up into a smirk. Before Jack could grab the handle, Pitch moved in, swift and silent, and barred his escape.

"Rebellion, Jack. You would be crucial to our success."

He didn't understand. He wasn't sure he wanted to. His eyes darted to the handle. Pitch twisted it for him, and pulled the door open. "We will speak again."

Onyx was just within, the man with the wooden shoes beside her. Pitch bid the woman butler to show Jack out, and she acquiesced with a bow. Jack hunched into his jacket as eyes and murmurs followed him through the ballroom.

He spotted the man with the wooden hand. And next to him, a woman with a wooden arm. Father back in the crowd was someone with a wood mask covering the whole of their face, even the back of their head. They looked very much like the doll North had down in his basement.

They weren't the only ones. As he followed Onyx to the door, he realized everyone in the room had some kind of affliction. That some part of them, arms, hands, fingers, legs, were replaced with wooden attachments.

By the time he reached the door out, he was wide eyed and trembling, breath coming fast. Onyx must have taken pity – though she looked as blank as ever – because she pressed her hand to his back and led him down the front path. The sound of her uneven foot – thump, THUD, thump, THUD – served as a distraction, pulling his thoughts away from the ballroom, the people, the voices, the music.

"I can send for a car if you can't make it home on your own," she said dully as she unlocked the gate.

Jack quickly shook his head. "No. I'm fine. Thank you." He slipped through the opening she provided and hurried away.

* * *

**AN: **I want to thank everyone for their support and comments, or simply reading. It means a lot to me that people actually read my stuff - and keep coming back! Crazy!

**Up Next: **Sandy.


	8. In which Jack is ditched with Bunny

**Chapter Eight: In which Jack is ditched with Bunny, and they face a nightmare (man)...**

He must have taken a wrong turn. Pitch's party was far behind him, but the fear lingered. His mind continually wandered back to what he had seen, what he had been told. He had walked quickly away, and then ran, and when he stopped to see where he had ended up, he did not know.

He didn't recognize the names painted at the intersection. He knew in which direction the shop lay, and thought it was possible that eventually he would find the right road if he just went that way. His first attempt left him at a dead end. As did the second. He tried to go back the way he had come, perhaps as far as Butterfly Lane, and start again, but he could no longer find it.

It was dark, and where he wandered there were few lights lit. Some streets had none at all. His eyes adjusted to the light of the half-moon, but it was hardly enough to navigate by.

He didn't know how late it was. He wondered if North or Tooth realized he was missing. Would they come looking for him? All he knew for sure was that he was not getting home tonight. Maybe, when the sun came out, he could orient himself, or ask someone for help.

But what would he do until then? Sleeping out here, on poorly lit streets, did not feel like a safe option.

"I'll just walk around then," he told himself. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, hunched his shoulders, and did just that.

For about two hours. No matter where he went, how far, or for how long, he never came across a familiar street or landmark. He was well and thoroughly lost. As exhaustion began to pull at him, his feet slowed. He was more aware of shadows, and how deep and dark they were. Any small noise sent a jolt of panic through him, sometimes enough for a burst of speed walking.

But even the fear of things lurking in the dark places was not enough to keep him moving. Far too soon, and with no idea how far away the morning was, he hit the proverbial wall. He slowed to a wavering shuffle. His eyes drooped, and it took far too much effort to keep them open. The cement under his feet would make a fine bed.

_Easy now._

He was dreaming. He was still standing, but he was dreaming. A voice breathed in his ear, stirring the pale strands that fell over it. It was soft and firm and warm and he leaned into it.

Strong hands bent his arms, lifted him up, supported him. He was moving, but the bodies pressing in other either side carried most of his weight, even as his feet – feet he could no longer feel – moved to keep up.

They turned him and sat him down, and arms wrapped around his legs and gently tucked them into … A wagon. He was in a wagon. It was small, very similar to the one his father dragged to and from the city. A horse snorted. His head rolled back and he stared blearily at the starry sky.

_You're safe now_, the voice said. _We'll take care of you_.

He tipped his head to the side and saw a woman. A lovely woman with long dark hair and kind eyes. There was something naggingly familiar about her, but his mind was too clouded to even try and figure out what.

A blanket was draped over his legs, and he found the other occupant at his other side. A small, round man with a wide smile and sleepy eyes. He waved cheerfully when he noticed Jack's gaze on him. The wagon lurched and rolled forward.

A spike of alarm, and Jack bolted up, weariness shoved away. The blanket slipped off onto the floorboards. "Wait! Who are you? Where are we going?"

"I am Sera," the woman said. "My friend is Sandy. We are taking you to a refuge for those who have been lost or abandoned."

"But I'm not lost or … Well, I am lost. But I'm not abandoned! I was at this party, and I…" He trailed off when he saw Sera tense up and her face go red. Sandy, when he glanced over, was also unhappy, now frowning deeply, brows pulled in close, troubled.

"Master Black's party, I assume?" Sera bit out.

Jack shrank back against the wagon's bench. "I guess… I mean, yes. How did you know…?"

"He throws one every month on this day. Tell me, what did he promise you?" With a snap of the reins, the wagon picked up speed.

"Nothing really. He said he had answers."

"And did he?"

"I don't know. No. I have no idea what is going on." He threw his hands up in exasperation. "I just want to go home."

Sandy reached over Jack to pat Sera on the arm. When he had her attention, he nodded. Jack didn't know what that meant, but she apparently did, as she nodded back. "Where is home?" she asked.

Jack cringed a little. "Near Fifth and Gale? The dollshop – Dingle and Dongle – that would be fine. You _are_ taking me home, right?"

"You're still with North?" Sera pursed her lips. Sandy bit his.

"What?" It was not surprising anymore that everyone knew his uncle. "Well, yes. He _is_ my uncle…"

"You are all North's children."

"Um. Okay." Jack pressed his hands between his knees. He had the uneasy feeling they were on different paths. "But he really is my uncle. My dad is his brother. Was." He shifted uncomfortably, but still caught Sera's lips thin out, her eyes go wide for just a second before darting down to Sandy, who shrugged worriedly.

Jack slouched down. "Can … can you just let me off now? I'll be fine. Really."

"It's not safe," Sera said. "You can't go back to North tonight."

"What? No! Let me off!" Jack moved to edge of his seat. He could leap over Sandy easily, but they were going fast enough that jumping from the wagon would certainly be painful. He would be lucky to get away without breaking something. "This is kidnapping!"

Sandy grabbed handfuls of his shirt in small hands and urged him to sit back. Jack refused to budge, and the hands released him, but only so he could flash a series of quick hand signs at Sera, his body still leaning partially over Jack.

Sera nodded. "You're right. We can't bring him back to the refuge either." She snapped the reigns. The wagon jolted, sending Jack back against the bench with a small cry.

"I don't mean to frighten you, Jack," she said, and edge that had been in her voice softened.

"You know my name." It didn't alleviate his fears any.

"You are known to all of us." That also did not help to calm him. "Pitch tried to recruit you tonight, did he not?"

"I … I don't…"

"But you are not still with him," she went on. "Which means he failed. He does not deal well with rejection."

"He seemed fine…" Maybe a little angry? "He didn't force me to stay or anything."

"No. Not with so many witnesses. He will send the Nightmare Men instead. They will not let you go. They will take you to a place hidden away from eyes and ears, where he will twist your mind and pervert your … thoughts."

Jack swallowed. "Nightmare Men?"

"His creatures. His minions. His army."

The wagon turned a corner, and Jack recognized the market area. There were still some places open, but not as much light or noise. A few people lingered on the street, but they were not lively. He thought they looked sickly and vacant. It really must be very late now.

Sandy reached over to tap Sera, made some signs.

"We will get them on the way back," Sera said. Sandy sat back, satisfied.

They turned again, and Jack felt he should know this poorly lit little corridor. It didn't dawn on him until they stopped, and he knew this building, _knew_ that door. He shook his head wildly, even as Sera and Sandy both hopped out of the wagon.

"No, no, no. No." And firmer still, "No."

Sera, who it turned out was quite tall and quite strong, leaned into the wagon and took Jack by the arm. "You and Aster have met." She pulled, and he found himself drawn out and set on the ground like a child.

"If that is what you call Mr. Bunny, then yeah. We've met."

She smiled and pushed him to the door, which Sandy was holding wide open. "He will protect you."

Bunny's words came back to him. _I am protecting you_. And he hated to think it was true. He hated that Bunny's idea of protection was to sit back and shut up and accept the way things were, no matter how ugly or unfair. To play by rules that left him helpless to fight back.

They climbed the stairs to Bunny's apartment, and Sandy pounded on the door. There was a long enough pause that Jack assumed Bunny was away, and was about to tell Sera and her friend that he should just go on back to North after all.

But then there was a thump, and muted cursing, and heavy feet stomping, and the door was torn open. Bunny, in nothing more than a shirt and underpants, glared at them. The glare leveled on Jack, held, and then the door was closing.

"I am not a charity, Sera!" he cried out. The door stopped just short of latching. "Get your foot out of my home, Sandy!"

Sandy's foot remained wedged between the door and the jamb.

"He needs a safe place to stay." Sera pushed on the door and it opened easily. Bunny was on the other side of the room, heading for the kitchen. There was a light burning on the counter.

"Take him to North. That's where he belongs." Bunny grabbed a kettle and filled it with water.

Jack trailed after the woman, and cast a smirk Bunny's way. "I already tried that." It was nice to see the apartment was still a mess. Even the blanket he had woken up with the last time he was here was still laying half-on, half-off the couch.

"He rejected Pitch's offer. I have every reason to believe…"

She didn't get to finish. The kettle was slammed down in the sink so hard it cracked, and Bunny was suddenly _right there_, grabbed Jack by the arm and threw him toward the couch. "Sit," he ground out. He pointed to the door. "You two, out."

Jack, still standing and rubbing at his arm, gave the woman and her little friend a pleading look. "You don't have to go!" he protested.

But Sera simply smiled and turned away. Sandy offered a little wave before they both slipped out the door. Bunny was staring him down, hard. "Sit," he snapped. He took a threatening step forward, and Jack dropped onto the couch without another word.

Bunny sagged and rubbed his face with one hand. He looked tired, Jack noted, and realized they had probably dragged him out of bed. "So you went, even when I told you not to?"

"You didn't actually … I mean technically you told me to stay away from _him, _not…"

Bunny drew in a deep breath, and the last of his patience if the glare he leveled on Jack was anything to go by.

Jack narrowed his eyes and glared back. "You know, you're not my boss, or my dad, or my uncle. You don't get to tell me what to do!"

Bunny continued to stare, unfazed.

Jack fidgeted and looked away, deflating. "But, um, I guess this time you were right. I shouldn't have gone. I … He…"

Bunny moved quickly, carefully, and crouched down in front of Jack. They were eye-to-eye this way. "Did he hurt you?"

He remember the hand pulling his hair, the grip on his chin. It had all faded out as he wandered the city, but now he could feel phantom touches lingering, a dull ache on his scalp. He twisted his fingers together so they wouldn't shake. He shook his head no, pretty sure Bunny would see through a lie if he spoke.

Bunny didn't seem to believe him anyway. He sighed and, surprising them both, wrapped an arm around Jack's shoulders and led him into an embrace. Jack stilled, breath catching, before he tentatively pressed his forehead into Bunny's shoulder.

"I'm not trying to be mean." Bunny's chin moved against Jack's shoulder. "I see a lot of terrible things in my work. Really … terrible things. I don't want you to become one of them."

"Because I'm North's nephew." He didn't bother to hide his upset. "Is that the only thing that matters to anyone?"

Bunny blew a hard breath out his nose. He didn't say anything for a few long seconds, and Jack wiggled to get free. Bunny's arm dropped and he sat back. "You should get some sleep. I'll bring you back to North in the morning."

Jack nodded, closing his eyes and turning his head away. He heard Bunny shuffle through stuff on the floor. "What are you all keeping from me?" he asked suddenly.

"Sorry?" Bunny paused with one hand on the knob of his bedroom door, and his lamp in the other.

"I feel like there's some secret you're all keeping. Some … some _thing_, and everyone knows it. Except me."

"That's something you'll have to take up with North."

Jack opened his eyes, wide and sad and hurt, and he looked so damn young. "So there is something?"

Bunny drew in a breath. "It's not my place, Jack."

"Bullshit! If you know, then tell me!" Jack was on his feet without consciously meaning to do so.

"I can't." Bunny pushed the door open. "I want to. I do. But I promised North. Now please, get some sleep. It's very late and I do have work tomorrow."

Jack returned to the couch, subdued. Bunny disappeared into his room, taking the light with him. He left the door open, and the light was extinguished. Jack grabbed the blanket from the end of the couch, kicked off his shoes, and rolled onto his side.

* * *

He was drowning. There was nothing but black all around, pushing and pulling and tugging him down. He couldn't move. His body had gone numb, and his lungs burned as he fought the urge to breathe in air that wasn't there. Something wrapped tightly around his ankle and yanked.

He woke with a gasp, heartbeat too fast, chest aching. He kicked at the blanket pinning him down, but even when it slid onto the ground, the feel of something gripping his ankle remained. He pulled his legs back, but that one wouldn't budge. The grip tightened, and pulled.

There was a shape at the other end of the couch. A head, but no features. An arm stretching forward, and fingers curled around his ankle. All of it was dark. Black.

He kicked at it as it rose up to move over him, caught it in the head. There was a crack, and the hand let go. He rolled off the couch, got one foot under him before a weight toppled on top of him. It was heavy, and hard. Hands and arms and legs circled and grabbed and tried to pin him down as he screamed and clawed at the floor to get away.

"Jack?" Light spilled out of the bedroom. Not much, but a small shaft, moving closer. The thing holding him down hissed and drew back. He bucked up against it, dislodging it enough to crawl away. He felt a hand brush over his feet.

Bunny tumbled out of his room. He had the lamp in one hand, and a pistol in the other. Jack scrambled behind him and turned.

The thing was a person. Only not. It had the body of a human, but no face. Just a vague head shape on top of a cylinder neck. There were balls at every joint, and it seemed to have been entirely carved from wood. It was painted black. Every inch of it. Bunny waved the lamp at it, and it skittered back into a crouch.

"What is that?" Jack didn't care that his voice was shaking. All of him was shaking.

"Nightmare Man," Bunny replied. There was a click, and he raised his gun, leveled it at the thing. "I didn't think Pitch would be desperate enough to send one here."

The thing moved onto its hands and knees and crept forward. Bunny waved the light around again, and it hopped back, agitated.

"It doesn't like light," Jack observed.

"They're made to move through the dark. The light blinds them. He knows you're over here, but he can't see you anymore. They're mostly mindless. Cover your ears."

"Huh?" Jack barely had time to process the command and pressed his hands over his ears before a shot rang out through the tiny apartment. The thing's head rocked back, bits of wood flying everywhere. It flopped backward and lay still.

Jack watched and Bunny waited, his gun still trained on the thing. When it didn't move, Bunny moved carefully to it and gave it a couple of nudges and a kick. It didn't respond.

"Jack, come take the light."

Jack inched close enough to stretch an arm out and hook his fingers around the lamp handle, staying as far from any part of the Nightmare Man as he could. Bunny, on the other hand, set his pistol on the couch and gathered the thing up over one shoulder.

"Go open the window," Bunny said.

Jack hurried to the kitchen, and the apartment's only window. He set the lamp down so he could pry it open with both hands. It was only halfway open when Bunny started shoving the thing through, head first. Once the torso was through, its own weight pulled it the rest of the way out. There was a pause, then a clatter of wooden limbs as it struck the ground.

Bunny stepped back with a firm, satisfied nod. "Let's hope that's the only one he sent."

Jack, however, was horrified. "Was it real? It was moving! It … That thing was alive and you _killed_ it! _You threw it out the window_!"

"It was just a doll, Jack. Never should have existed in the first place." Bunny winced, and quickly spun around to retrieve his gun. His every move was stiff and jerky.

"A doll. How was that a doll?" He was suddenly, vividly reminded of the unfinished work in North's basement, the eyes that had stared back at him. He had put it to the back of his mind, never wanted to ever think of it again.

"Like a toy, the kind that does something if you wind them up. Those one, they're simple. They only know what they're told, and can only really focus on one thing at a time. Those ones are terrors. They stalk, take, kill."

"There are other kinds?"

Bunny breathed in deep, and let it go slowly. "You're going to have to sleep closer to me." Jack frowned at the change of topic. "More could be coming. We'll keep the lamp burning until sunrise." He waited at the bedroom door for Jack to come along.

The bedroom was ridiculously small. Maybe it was meant to be a closet, and Bunny just squeezed a mattress in and called it a room. The bed was the only thing that fit into it. There was a shelf nailed into the wall, and it was there Jack found a space to set the lamp (though he had to stand on the mattress to do so).

Bunny secured the door behind them, tucked his pistol between the mattress and the wall, and crawled under the blankets. "Just keep to your side," he warned.

Jack gingerly lifted the covers and slid under, but doubted he would get any more sleep tonight.

He was wrong.

* * *

**Up Next**: Mrs. Bennett returns for her commission.


	9. In which Jack learns how dolls are made

**Chapter Nine: In which Jack learns how dolls are made...**

Jack woke to someone – Bunny – shaking his shoulder. The enforcer was already washed and dressed, though he looked about as tired as Jack felt, with dark circles under his eyes and his complexion pallid.

"No tea today." Bunny rose up from his crouch over Jack. "Get up and we'll get going."

Jack's mouth and mind refused to work together, so he just grumbled and crawled off the mattress squished in the room-closet. Heh. Room closet. That was funny.

Bunny grabbed him by and arm and helped him to his feet. "Good to see you can still smile."

Jack grunted some kind of affirmative, then forced out, "Bathroom?"

"Down the hall. I'll wait for you downstairs. Don't take too long."

Jack nodded tiredly and shuffled out of the apartment. There were five doors on this floor, including Bunny's, but only one without a number. Jack guessed that was the bathroom, and it was not occupied at this ungodly hour. (He assumed it was an ungodly hour. He didn't actually know what time it was.)

The bathroom had a sink, and a toilet. But most amazing of all was the bathtub with plumbing. North's building didn't even have a tub. Back in the village, his family had one big metal tub that was dragged out to the back porch once a week, and they all took turns with it. Their toilet was an outhouse that they shared with the neighbors.

Jack twisted the handles and watched as water poured out. All told, he could probably use a bath, and this one looked worlds more comfortable than the bucket at home. But Bunny would probably pitch a fit if he took _that_ long. He settled on scrubbing his face with cold water from the sink and running a rag over his arms, neck, and chest.

Bunny was tapping his foot impatiently when Jack met him in the alley outside his building. It was much brighter out than Jack expected, and when they stepped out onto the market street, there were already open stalls and people filling in the empty spaces.

"How late did I sleep?" Jack wondered.

"Only a little later than myself," Bunny grumbled. "And I overslept by an hour. I should be working right now."

"Oh. Sorry." Jack ducked his head and hid his eyes under his hair.

"Not your fault. Just a rough night is all." Bunny gently nudged him out of the path of a group of women headed the other way. They all nodded politely to Bunny.

"Aw, you don't hate me after all." Jack didn't raise his head, but his big crooked grin was hard to miss.

Bunny bristled. "I never said I hated you."

"You just don't want me around." The smile faded, hands went into pockets.

Bunny opened his mouth, then shut it, sighed. "There's … It's complicated."

Jack glared at the sidewalk. "I bet it's not."

They broke free of the marketplace, tense and silent, and remained so until they arrived at the dollshop. North was not in the basement, and he wasn't alone. Mrs. Bennett was also there, looking about as proper as she had the first time Jack had seen her. A bit of a smile began to pull her painted lips when she saw Jack, but just as quickly, she sniffed disdainfully and looked away. Jack frowned at that, wondering just what he had done to upset her. But then he realized Bunny had gone still and stiff beside him, and was scowling at the woman. It was the enforcer she didn't like.

North stomped across the room, and before Jack could get a word out, he was enveloped in a bone-crushing embrace. "Where have you been? I have been beside myself with worry!"

"Um… I…" Jack squirmed and was let go, though North kept one hand on his thin shoulder and looked him over.

"He was with me," Bunny cut in. "No harm intended. I thought he would have been good enough to tell you he was heading off."

Jack snapped his jaw shut. "Oh, yeah. Right." He adopted an abashed expression. "Sorry about that."

"Fine, fine. Just let me know from now on if you are going somewhere." North let him go as the basement door opened, and Tooth stepped into the room

"Oh, _finally_," Mrs. Bennett breathed.

"Bah. Finally." North marched back to the woman. "He was ready ahead of schedule! You didn't have to wait that long!"

After seeing the Nightmare Man last night, Jack should have been better prepared, or at least less shocked. But when a little boy with soft brown hair and big brown eyes followed Tooth up from the basement, he froze. It was the same face that had been laid out on North's table. The same eyes that had stared back at him. Only no part of this little creature looked like wood. His skin glowed with health, there was moisture in his mouth when his lips parted in a huge grin.

"Mother!" He rushed to Mrs. Bennett and threw his arms around her waist.

She urged him away so she could look him over, fuss with his hair a bit. "He's perfect. A job well done." She lacked any kind of enthusiasm.

"Of course he is!" North boomed. His laugh was a little forced.

Mrs. Bennett reached into her purse and withdrew a small package. It was Tooth who stepped forward and took it. Transaction complete, the woman bid everyone good day and took the boy's hand and led him to the exit.

Jack hadn't moved an inch, had barely dared to breathe. It was Bunny who grabbed him and pulled him out of the way as Mrs. Bennett approached. To Jack, she gave a small dip of the head, and to Bunny a haughty sniff.

The boy paused just behind her and smiled up at Jack. "Hello, again." Mrs. Bennett tugged him out the door, but not without a curious glance back. "Good-bye!" The boy hopped out the door with a wave.

Jack tore his eyes away from the boy disappearing down the road and turned to see North regarding him with a very stern, very serious, face. He squeaked, feeling like a deer caught in a trap.

Bunny gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "My cue to go. See you around, kid." And he was gone in a flash.

Jack decided Bunny really was an ass.

"Hello _again_?" North stroked a hand down his beard. "That is interesting."

Tooth huffed and crossed her arms. "Jack, what have done? I thought it was made clear that you are _not_ to go…"

"Tooth, dear, I will handle this," North cut in. His mustache lifted with his smile as he took the small woman by the hands. "He is my nephew, my responsibility, hm?" He steered her to the basement door. "I will be down in a moment."

Tooth didn't look happy as she glanced back at Jack, then complied to North's request and descended into the basement.

The moment the large man's eyes fell on him, Jack blurted, "I'm sorry! It was an accident!"

North raised a brow, but let Jack go on with his panicked explanation.

"There was this bird! But it wasn't a bird. It had _arms_! Little tiny _arms_, North! And it went down there, and I … I didn't want it make trouble, or poop on anything, so I went to get it, and _I'm_ _sorry_!"

Jack took a breath, failed to see the growing amusement twinkling his uncle's eyes. "I saw him, North! I saw his head, and his body, and he wasn't even put together. And now … now he just _walks out of here_! He looked real. How was he real?" He felt a tug on his scalp and realized he was pulling at his own hair. "Is he … is that a Nightmare Man?"

"Nightmare Man?" A darkness fell over North's face, banishing the smile and brightness of his eyes. "No. I do not make those monsters. Where did you hear of them?"

Jack backed into the wall, thinking the deepening scowl was meant for him. "I … I saw one, while I was with Bunny."

North grunted. Apparently, that meant the answer was acceptable. His face relaxed. "Jamie is not a Nightmare Man. He is a boy. And he is real. As real as you and me. He has a mind, and a heart, and a soul. He will laugh and cry. He will feel love, and happiness, and sorrow. He is real."

Jack's voice shook with uncertainty. Did he really want to know? But he asked anyway. "How?"

North's fingers trailed down his beard as he thought. That spark of amusement returned to his eyes. "Tooth will disagree, but I think it is time you learn what it is we do here."

* * *

Normally, North explained, they waited until it was dark, until there were fewer people on the streets, and most of the city was asleep. But today was an exception. He didn't want Jack's head filling up with fantasies and terrors while he waited; it was best to just show him, now.

Jack didn't know what to expect when North retrieved a bag from the basement and led him off down the street, but a morgue was not it. A man in the lobby greeted them with a nod, didn't even ask why they were there. North navigated the place as if he had been there a hundred times before. They descended into a cold, dark room. It smelled of decay and something else he couldn't identify. There were three bodies laid out on three tables, naked under the thin sheets thrown over them.

North didn't waste time. He dropped his bag on a nearby table and yanked it open. The tool he pulled out looked like some kind of tongs, or pliers. He approached the first of the bodies – an elderly man – and pried his mouth open.

"Wh-what are you doing?" Jack felt faint. Spots were dancing across his eyes. He saw his mother, and father. His little sister. All three laid out, all three buried.

North paused. "We need the teeth. They are the key." He set the pliers down. "You do not look well, Jack. Maybe you should wait outside?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I should." Jack scrambled back up the stairs, passed by the man, who nodded again, and stepped outside, heaving air. He dropped to the ground and huddled over his knees until his vision cleared. Then he sat against the wall by the door and waited.

Twenty some minutes passed before North left the morgue, bag in hand. "Are you alright?" he asked. He bent and offered a hand.

Jack gripped North's hand and allowed himself to be hauled up to his feet. "I'm fine," he mumbled. "I guess the bodies just…" He suppressed a shudder. "Did you really take their teeth?" The thought made his knees go weak again.

North nodded. "Come. I will show you what we do with them."

Jack breathed deep, and tried not to let his imagination get away with him. For what reason would they need the teeth of corpses? As they drew nearer the shop, he increasingly did not want to know. His head spun, and he felt like throwing up when North ushered him down into the basement.

There was a new doll laid out on the table. A head carved from wood, a torso only choppily shaped, and nothing else. There were empty sockets where its eyes should be, and its mouth hung open. Jack hung back by the steps, unwilling to venture too close.

Tooth was perched on one of the work tables. The look she gave Jack was not pleasant, and the look she gave North more so. But North, who understood the small woman even when she said nothing at all, waved her off with a, "It will be fine."

He dropped his bag near the head of the new doll and pried it open while Tooth hopped off the table and retrieved a jar full of bluish liquid from a shelf hanging on the wall. Jack remembered seeing the jars – some empty, some not – when he had chased the birdthing down the stairs.

North took the jar from Tooth and set it aside. "I thought you were going to do the eyes while I was away," he grumbled.

Tooth shrugged. "You forgot to tell me which color. I didn't want to make a mistake."

North grunted. "My fault then. The green, if you please." While Tooth darted off to another corner of the basement, North turned to Jack. "Come. You can't see anything from over there."

Jack wrapped his arms around his stomach and shook his head. "I don't want to see."

"Bah. It is nothing to be afraid of." North moved away from the table, approached Jack with a kind smile and dropped a heavy, warm arm over his shoulders. "This is something I think you should know."

Jack was reluctant, his feet dragged, but North managed to coax his unwilling body to the table. The doll looked a little less real up close. The features on the face were not as fine and polished as those on the last – Jamie.

Tooth returned. In her hands were two balls, all white with color on one side. Green circles. North took one from her and held it out to Jack. "These will be his eyes."

Jack carefully took the eye and held it by the tips of his fingers. The detail was unreal. Or rather, too real. If it weren't so cold to the touch, so smooth and hard, he would think it were a real eye, plucked whole and undamaged from a socket.

He suddenly felt sick again and hurriedly tried to hand the glass eye back to North. But the man refused it. "Hold it up to the light."

Afraid he might drop it with his hands trembling, he did as told and held it close to one of the many lamps lit up around the room. As the yellow flame flickered light over and through the eye, the pupil and iris vanished. Jack pulled his hand back, and the colors returned. His brows drew together, curious, and he looked to North for an explanation.

"It is the law," North sighed sadly. "The first dolls, you could not tell who was created, and who was human. Not on sight, anyway. It caused problems. It frightened people. They could not tell who was … who was _real_." He spat the word out as if it offended him. "Manny demanded, for safety and peace, that something be done."

"Manny?"

"He governs the city. His word is law." North took the eye from Jack. "These eyes were the compromise. In light, the color goes white. In this way, one may see who is a doll, and who is not."

"Are there still … first dolls?" Jack watched as North carefully pressed the eyes into the head's empty sockets.

"Oh, yes." North adjusted the eyes so they stared straight up. "Only the dolls created since the compromise have these eyes. Those that came before, I did not alter them."

"How many are there?"

"Now? I think there are two hundred or so by my hand."

Tooth grabbed the bag North had brought down with him and began to rummage around. "Two hundred and twenty-three, not counting duplicates." She pulled free a small bundle and opened it up. The teeth, though not nearly enough for three corpses. "Two are missing," she said immediately.

"One of them did not have a complete set." North lay a hand between Jack's shoulder blades when the boy wavered and went pale. "Try the bag with red string."

Another little bundle was taken from the bag, and Tooth made a sound of approval when she saw the teeth inside. A dead man's teeth.

Jack breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth, as steadily as he could manage. "Why teeth?" he asked weakly.

North pinched a tooth between his fingers and inspected it under the light. "They say eyes are the window to the soul? It's not true. The soul is _here_."

"In … teeth?"

Tooth was moving the teeth around, lining them up, putting them in the correct order. "They are where memories are stored away, for safe keeping. And what are we but a collection of memories. Everything we know, all of our lessons and experiences, everything we have been, are, and will be."

North pulled the doll's mouth open a little wider and pressed the tooth inside. Jack couldn't get close enough to see how the teeth were to stay put – and he didn't really want to. The process was repeated with the next tooth, and the next.

"This doll will have the memories of one of those dead men?" Jack gripped the side of the table, curious despite the revulsion.

"No." North shifted and arched over the head so he could get the back teeth in. "Tooth has a very special gift. She will clean these teeth of their memories. This young man will have, eh, clean slate."

"No memories. You can do that? Just take them all away?" Jack felt something besides sick. Something that writhed in the back of his mind, a fear, a sense of familiarity that he didn't want to acknowledge.

"All of them, some of them." Tooth shrugged lightly. "I can choose what memories remain, what is not needed. As with Jamie. He remembered his mother. He will remember his sister. I left him with his fondest memories, and removed any that were painful."

North straightened and pressed his hands against his back. A series of cracks followed. "All done. Your turn, my dear."

Tooth smiled softly and unfastened the lid of the jar of blue liquid. She dipped a finger in, then hovered her finger over the doll's open mouth, allowing three drops to fall in. She ran the excess on her finger over the front teeth, then tenderly closed the mouth, closed her eyes, and began to murmur quietly for several minutes.

When she looked up again, she seemed dazed, disoriented, and North quickly caught her by the arm and lifted her up onto one of the work tables.

Jack looked at the doll, still lifeless, still staring blindly up at the ceiling, still wooden and incomplete. "That's it?"

"It doesn't take long to wipe all of the memories," North said. "It can take several hours, or even days, to select only certain ones. He will begin to wake some time tomorrow."

Jack nodded, numb, bile rising in his throat.

"It wasn't so bad, was it?" North asked. He ran a hand over Tooth's hair as she blinked back to awareness.

"Yes. No. I don't know." Jack backed away from the table. "I need some air." He practically ran up the stairs and out of the shop, and kept on down the street.

He was running away. Away from what he had just seen, what he had learned. He was trying to get away from an uncomfortable, frightening feeling that everything he knew was a lie.

* * *

**Up Nex**t : Jack tags along with Bunny, and will wish he hadn't.


	10. In which Jack trails Bunny

**WARNING: **This chapter contains child death and implications of child abuse.

**Chapter Ten: In which Jack trails Bunny and gets a dose of reality...**

Jack found himself in an alley. Night was setting in, and the downtown was transitioning from a bustling marketplace to a rowdy entertainment district. The voices were louder, more jubilant, more laughter. The music was more upbeat. The crowds that gathered were young and bright. Lights sprang up along the street, poured yellow, red, green, blue from windows and doorways.

He didn't want to be anywhere near it.

But he didn't know where else to go. He didn't want to risk getting lost again. He couldn't go home. Not yet.

His back hit a wall and he slid down until he was sitting, knees pulled close, trying to make himself as small as possible. If he had thought to grab his coat, he could have thrown it over his head to hide the too bright hair. There was nothing for it now but to hope the shadows in the alley were deep enough to conceal silvery white.

Time crawled. He watched people move up and down the street, some just feet from where he huddled, but none seemed to notice him. A few times, he caught himself drifting off, giving in to a bone-deep exhaustion, only to snap awake when his dreams turned to writhing shadows shaped like men, grinning with stolen teeth.

He was slumping and fighting off another wave of fatigue when his space was intruded upon, not by dreams and shadows, but by a small body striking him, tripping over him, dragging him out of his seated curl to lay confused on the dirty ground. The body, a boy of maybe twelve, struggled to his knees and tried to scamper away as another figure skidded into the alley and shouted.

"I said stop!"

Jack knew that voice. He pushed himself up, but could not see Bunny's face through the light he held. He looked instead at the boy, who was still on the ground, but crabwalking backward, saying, "I didn't mean to!" and, "I'm sorry!"

The light rested on the boy's face, and for the briefest of moments, they appeared full white, no pupil, no iris.

Bunny stalked forward. "You didn't mean to steal a wallet? It didn't just fall into your hands, Timothy." He put the light away, didn't seem to notice Jack standing off to the side.

Timothy reached behind him. Bunny stiffened, then relaxed as a square of leather was produced from some hidden place on Timothy's person. The boy tossed it Bunny's way. "There! Take it! I was only looking for enough to eat by."

Bunny bent to retrieve the wallet. "This'll just get you in trouble. You're lucky I'm the one that caught you."

"Yessir. I know." Timothy clambered to his feet. "It won't happen again, I swear."

Bunny heaved a sigh, one that said he didn't believe a word of it. But he stepped aside. "Stick with the refuge. They'll take care of you."

Timothy nodded with another "yessir" and took off running.

Jack didn't want to make any sudden movements. If Bunny hadn't seen him yet, he might not see him at all and just go away. Jack lifted one foot to edge sideways, and found himself pinned by a fierce green glare.

"And you!" Bunny threw his hands up. "Why do you keep turning up where you aren't supposed to be?"

Jack shuffled, a hand in his hair. "I, um … Taking a walk?"

"No."

"No?"

"No. You are not taking a walk. I can tell you're lying."

Jack fell back against the wall. "Oh." There was no point in denying it. "I just needed to get away for a bit." He cast his gaze down, but peeked up to see Bunny wasn't going to settle for just that. It was the set of his lips, the hard glare, the stiff posture. "It's nothing," he tried. Bunny's glare intensified. Jack withered. "North showed me how he makes the … the dolls. With the teeth? It was … it … I…" He pushed up from the wall, agitated, with himself, with Bunny, with everything. "I panicked. And I ran. So … here I am!"

He spread his hands, lifted his chin to scowl back at the enforcer. What are you going to do about it?

Bunny breathed out, long and slow, and all of the tension in him went with it. "Okay." He was conceding. Jack blinked, was torn between relief and a smile, or just standing there stupidly.

He stood there stupidly.

Bunny shrugged his shoulders. "Okay," he said again, with more conviction. "I suppose you don't want to go home?"

Jack shook his head.

Bunny nodded. "Right. I've got another three hours, but my route takes me by the apartment. You can tag along with me until then. I don't want you taking off on your own." He reached into a pocket and held out a key. "You can let yourself in with this."

"I don't need a babysitter," Jack said softly, though he didn't want to take off on his own either. Not through the heart of noise and light and people. He took the key and dropped it into a pocket.

Bunny made a sound that Jack couldn't decipher, something on the border between amused and sarcastic. "Let's go."

Jack didn't argue further. He planted himself at Bunny's side and together they set off walking. They stuck to poking in and out of alleys and weaving down the side streets, avoiding the areas that were heavily populated. They came across very few people, and those they found were harmless. Homeless men and women, some dolls, some not. Sometimes, Bunny would tell them to go to "the refuge". Only the dolls.

After the third time this happened, Jack spoke. "That woman who dropped me off at your place that night, she mentioned a refuge."

Bunny grunted in acknowledgement. "It's a shelter. A safe haven. Sera and Sandy put it together when things started getting out of hand."

"Out of hand?"

Bunny was doing something else along their route. When he came upon boxes and trash bins and barrels, he would look inside, dig around sometimes, looking for something. He shook a bin now, then dropped the lids back on. "There was a big demand for dolls following the war. The population became substantial. It grew too much, too fast. People were blind with grief. They weren't thinking, they just wanted a quick fix for their pain."

Jack hugged his arms around his middle. He felt sick. "They brought back the dead … They brought them back as dolls?"

"Yeah. But then reality sank in. People realized the dolls were not real."

Jack opened his mouth to protest, but his voice hitched in his throat.

Bunny went on. "They were not their loved ones. They were just copies wearing familiar faces."

"But the teeth," Jack forced out. "The memories? Wouldn't they still have…"

"No." Bunny shrugged. "Maybe some of them. But there were a lot of teeth, a lot of dead. Too many to keep track of who was who. People were caught digging up gravesites to find teeth, stealing them from bodies, paying others to supply them. It was chaos.

"No. Most of the teeth were wiped clean. The dolls were just empty shells. And once the grief wore off, people saw that. They saw they were clinging to a face, but not a person. Dolls were destroyed or forced out of their homes, abandoned. They still are, once they've outlived their usefulness or are no longer wanted.

"The refuge is the best place for discarded dolls. Sera and Sandy feed and shelter them, find them work. Real work. They send a lot of them out of the city. There aren't many outside of Burgess that know about them."

They moved on. Jack still gripped his elbows and trailed behind Bunny. His mind was spinning, too full. Blank. He couldn't think. He didn't want to think. He had watched a doll – a doll that looked in every way like a real human being – walk out of the shop with a very real smile. North said they grew, and felt, and experienced life like anyone else. They were not _things_. They were living creatures.

Did North know they were thrown away, left behind, tossed aside like old toys? He must.

And yet he continued to make them, to give them breath and life. For what purpose?

Jack stopped, suddenly and with his heart in his throat, when he heard a curse and a loud bang. His gaze snapped up from the sidewalk to see Bunny slamming his fist into a brick wall. The round tin lid of a trash bin was laying near his feet, still vibrating from its strike against that same wall.

Jack crept forward. It was something in the bin. He could see a glint from within, a reflection of a lamp hanging off the nearest door.

He knew this alley. It was the first place he had come after moving in with North. The house with the strange little girl was two doors down – the one with the blue door.

Jack stopped moving when Bunny pushed away from the wall. He bent to pick up the lid. Jack's shoes made a too loud scraping sound as he dragged himself closer to the bin and looked in, knowing he would not like what he saw.

It was her.

The strange little girl.

She had no eyes, and her mouth was empty of teeth, but the face was the same, even though it was all wood. Her hair was golden and tangled and splayed all over, partially hiding the rest of her body folded up under her, parts of it splintered and broken.

Jack lurched away, a hand going to his mouth, cutting off a scream. He turned away just in time to lose his last meal against the building. He heard the clank of the lid being returned to the bin, and then Bunny was next to him, rubbing his back.

When he could breathe again without heaving, Jack spit and shut his eyes. "Shouldn't you be getting help?" he asked. Stop bothering with me and do something about this.

Bunny took his hand back, leaned up against the wall with his arms crossed. "There's nothing to help." His voice was rough, angry. Sad. "No law has been broken."

Jack staggered back, his knees weak and threatening to give out. But his hands were in fists. "No law..? There's a body … A little girl is dead, and you…"

"A doll," Bunny cut in. "She's a doll."

"That's not all she is, and you know it!" He felt hot tears trail down his cheeks, drip off his chin.

Bunny didn't say anything, didn't move. He just looked at Jack with a frown and eyes that might have been sympathetic, but all Jack saw was a man allowing the murder of a child to go unchecked.

"Why?" Jack choked.

Bunny moved toward him, one hand reaching out, slowly. "I can't do anything about this, Jack. She's not…" His voice trailed off. He didn't want to say it.

Jack said it instead. "She's not real." The anger dissolved quickly, the tears burned hotter. "She's not a person." The suspicion that ate away in the back of his mind, that settled like led in his gut, tried to crawl forward. He forced it back, denied it, though it left behind traces of terror.

Bunny hesitated, and then grabbed him, one hand around his arm, the other at the back of his head. His face was pressed into a strong shoulder, and he could smell the dirt and sweat and leather of Bunny's coat. He felt Bunny's chest move with a heavy sigh, then just breathing.

"I'm taking you home." His voice was a rumble.

Jack jerked and tried to get away with a protest, but the hands held him in place.

"_My_ home," Bunny said. The hand in Jack's hair moved, fingers tugging through and smoothing the wild strands. Bunny's breath ghosted over the top of his head. "If I could do something about this, I would." His voice was a whisper, a secret.

They stayed like that a while longer. Jack wanted to hold on to the anger, the disappointment, even the fear and sorrow. But exhaustion took over, and when it did he let Bunny lead him away from alley, away from the trash bin.

Nothing more happened that night. Jack didn't remember falling asleep in Bunny's room, or if the enforcer had stayed with him. Bunny was there when he woke, and was there to walk him back to the doll shop.

Neither one spoke to North or Tooth. Bunny left once he was sure Jack would be okay, and promised to return later to check up on him.

That evening, Mrs. Bennett stepped primly into the shop with Jamie in tow, demanding a new Sophie.

* * *

**Up Nex**t: Sandy pays North a visit.


	11. In which Jack and Jamie go for ice cream

**Chapter Eleven: In which Jack and Jamie go for ice cream...**

It didn't take much to convince Mrs. Bennett to let Jamie leave the shop with Jack while she and North hashed out details for her new doll. The moment they arrived, the boy had been fidgety and too interested in grabbing babydolls off shelves with careless hands. Mrs. Bennett had a peculiar fondness for Jack, even entrusted him with a bit of money to buy treats for himself and … she called Jamie her son.

It had been Jack's idea, a sudden compulsion, a need to get the small boy alone. To his knowledge, he had not spent any significant time with a doll. He had a need to understand, to hear one speak and see one move, to observe every part of them. To convince himself that they were real. Or that they weren't.

"Can we get ice cream?" Jamie was bouncing along beside him, radiating happiness, smile wide and eyes bright.

Jack looked down at him, and the fog darkening his mind thinned. He couldn't help but grin and pass a hand over the child's head. "I don't know where to find any," he said.

"Oh, I do! Momma takes us all the time." Jamie twisted and grabbed Jack's hand with both of his and tugged. "I'll show you!"

Jack followed willingly, laughing. It felt good to laugh. It had been too long since he felt good enough, light enough, _happy_ enough to laugh. It sounded alien at first, but it felt wonderful, and he laughed more.

Jamie gave him an odd look, but laughed too. Before long, they were running down the street, Jack keeping his pace slow enough to follow Jamie. They avoided busier streets, ducking into and crossing through alleys wherever they could. Jamie was, apparently, quite adept at avoiding persons who might do him harm for simply existing.

They came to a giggling, stumbling stop in an area Jack didn't know. It wasn't too far from the market area. That was all he really knew. It was quiet, with only a few people moving up the street. They didn't so much as look at the two boys panting and fighting back their mirth.

The only odd thing Jack could pick out was that many of the business spaces were empty, a couple boarded up. Some looked as though they had simply been abandoned, their storefronts displaying dusty, cobwebbed wares behind locked doors.

Jamie took Jack's hand again and led him to one of the few open businesses – a treat shop with a sign erected on the sidewalk, pink lettering and a blue arrow letting them know, "Ice Cream Served Here! 3 cents!"

Mrs. Bennett had given them five times as much.

"Looks like the price went up again," Jamie groused. "Momma says it's getting ridiculous."

"I'm sure it is," replied Jack, who didn't have a penny of his own, and had never really thought about the price of things beyond the knowledge that he couldn't buy anything anyway.

In the window by the door was a small sign that read, "Come One, Come All". It wasn't like the colorful, attractive signs advertising candies and chocolates and ice cream and soda. It was a block of wood the words painted on.

Jack must have taken too long considering the sign, because Jamie tugged on his hand impatiently. "It means everyone is welcome. Now _come on_!"

Jack smiled, and laughed, and let himself be pulled through the door and into the brightly lit shop. It smelled sickeningly sweet, with its candies – hard and soft – displayed on every shelf. There were chocolates and cookies behind a glass counter, where an old man stood with his arms folded on the top.

"Mr. Bennett," the man greeted. "Back again so soon?"

"Yes, sir! We came for ice cream." Jamie bounced up to the counter. "And gum! We have enough for that, don't we?" He turned to Jack, eyes pleading.

"Um, yeah. I think so." Jack dug out of his pocket the money Mrs. Bennett had given him. There was more than enough. "An ice cream and gum, then." He lay the coins on the counter and slid four pennies across.

Jamie reached over on tip-toe and pushed three more cents to the shopkeeper. "Two ice creams."

Jack put up a little fight. "Oh, no, I shouldn't…" But no one was fooled, and soon enough, he and Jamie were leaving the shop with cones full of ice cream in hand.

* * *

Tooth took Mrs. Bennett for tea while they discussed the new doll and contract and pricing. Mrs. Bennett felt she should receive a discount, while North felt a customer demanding the same products over and over again should have to pay an additional inconvenience fee. Mrs. Bennett was aghast at the very suggestion, and Tooth secretly wondered if he was trying to discourage the woman from purchasing more Jamies and Sophies.

The women were only a few minutes gone when Sandy popped in, his round face troubled. North didn't notice, or pretended not to.

"Sandy!" he greeted, with a large smile and a chuckle. "What brings you to my fine store?"

The little man with the golden hair tutted and wagged a finger, then tapped one of his ears.

"Ah. You are here to argue with me again." North's smile dropped into a sigh. "When was the last time we had a pleasant conversation? I don't remember."

Sandy tapped his ear again, though he did adopt a somewhat more guilty expression.

"Yes, yes," North sighed again. "What is it you wish to discuss?"

Sandy reached into his coat for a folded piece of paper, which he handed off to the doll maker.

North took the paper, unfolded it, and immediately tried to hand it back. "Bunnymund gave me this list some time ago. I do not know why you both insist on showing me this. It is more suited to you and your outreach, no?"

If it were possible, smoke would have poured from Sandy's ears. Slowly, deliberately, he moved his hands through a series of gestures and signals. _You need to stop._

"Don't you give me that." North's fist found a tabletop and gave it a good whack. "I do good work!"

_I know you think that. _Sandy was not fazed by the show of temper. He expected it. _But you can't ignore what is happening to them._

"I do not ignore! Things happen. Good things, bad things. I cannot control that."

Sandy shook the paper hard, frustrated. His signing was forceful. _You can stop making more victims._

"I do _not_ make victims. I give back lost loved ones. I substitute pain with love. I fill in the gaps that death and sorrow leave behind…"

"And when people get tired of those replacements, they're tossed out, sold off to factories and brothels, killed." Bunny leaned against the open doorway. Neither North nor Sandy heard him enter, had no idea how long he had been there. "North, that paper there is a very long list of dolls that have been found homeless, turned up as entertainment or disposable workers, found in ditches and trash cans, just this month. And the law won't protect them."

Bunny moved into the room, let the door swing shut behind him. "I know you're trying to help, and I know it seems like a good thing. But dead is dead, and most people start to realize that. And when they do…" He snatched the paper out of Sandy's hand and held it out to North. "The war did a number on all of us." He glared pointedly when North tried to give him a sympathetic face, when his voice broke toward the end, when his jaw clinched over an unwanted emotion. "But I don't believe this is the way to mend those wounds."

North hesitantly took the paper. "Not all of them are mistreated," he said, though his tone was subdued.

"No. But enough of them are. It's a concern."

Sandy nodded in agreement. Said, _There are more. You are not the only one making them. It is getting out of hand._

North made a sound, not agreeing or disagreeing. An acknowledgment and nothing more.

Sandy looked to Bunny helplessly. Said, _What else?_

Bunny shook his head. This wasn't the first time either of them had approached North, or tried to convince him to stop making the dolls. It never worked. But they kept trying, hoping for that one time it would work.

The heavy silence that followed was broken when the door burst open and Jack hopped in with Jamie in tow. Both were laughing. Jack wiped a tear from the corner of his eye and was the first to notice the somber faces.

"Wow. You guys look pretty serious. Should we come back?" he remarked, already taking a step backward.

Jamie frowned at the room. "Where's my mother?"

North was the first to plaster on a smile. "She will be back shortly. She and Toothiana just went for a bit of tea. You are welcome here until they return."

"Oh. Okay." Jamie brightened up, eyes already straying to a flashy knight puppet hanging near the register.

Jack smirked, already guessing he would continue to be in charge of the kid until his mother arrived. And he didn't mind.

Bunny cleared his throat, gaining their attention, though it was Jack he was looking at. They both realized it, and neither knew what to do about it. The enforcer had a peculiar look about him, and it confused the younger. "I'm heading out," he told them. "I used up my lunch break for this."

Sandy motioned that he, too, was done with the conversation and ready to leave.

Before reaching for the door, Bunny paused beside Jack and dropped his voice. "You should smile like that more often. It looks good on you." He left, but noticed the pink that bloomed on Jack's pale cheeks.

Behind him, Sandy snickered into his hands.

* * *

AN : Thank you everyone for your support and comments. I am loving all of the speculation! Also, sorry for the tiny chapter. Next one should be longer. :)


	12. In which Jack is confronted

**Chapter Twelve: In which Jack is confronted…**

Jack blinked blearily and looked up from the fold of his arms when a persistent tapping at the top of his head drew him out of a dreamless sleep. Jamie Bennett stood on the other side of the counter, smiling softly.

"Oh, hey." Jack sat up on the stool he was perched on and scrubbed at his eyes. "Is school out already?"

Jamie didn't go to school. He was tutored, but his lessons often ran into early evening. Mrs. Bennett demanded her money's worth.

"Um, yeah." Jamie twitched and crossed his arms behind his back. "We ended early today."

Jack hadn't known Jamie long, but for the last three weeks, the doll – the boy – had come to the shop every single day to talk to Jack, and sometimes drag him downtown to buy more ice cream. Katherine found him adorable. Or, more truthfully, she found them both adorable, especially when together. Even Bunny commented on how much happier Jack appeared to be.

Jamie, too, was happy. Mrs. Bennett praised Jack constantly for his giving her little boy someone to talk to, and play with, and bolster his spirit.

He wished he could do the same for Sophie, who shuffled out of the basement a week prior with the same dead-eyed expression she had when Jack first met her. Mrs. Bennett hadn't looked pleased, had asked if a new set of teeth would make any difference. North had told her, quietly, gently, and firmly, "Sophie is Sophie. If you give her new teeth, she will not be your daughter."

Jack couldn't help but feel this was a contradiction to everything he knew so far. North did not often concern himself with whose teeth went into which body. As far as Jack was aware, many of the dolls were copies of dead faces, with the teeth of people entirely unrelated, their memories wiped away so they could learn to become someone they were not.

Perhaps Sandy and Bunny's nagging was getting through to him, on some level.

Jack shook the thoughts out of his head and smiled down at Jamie. "Sorry. My head's too full today."

But Jamie simply shrugged, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. He didn't even attempt to smile back.

Jack leaned over the counter, smile dropping, concerned. "Hey. Are you okay?"

Jamie shrugged. "I guess. Mama's kind of mad at me today." He raised one of his hands into view, and Jack started, his throat suddenly dry. It was wood. All of it, every joint and finger, down to the wrist. A ragged crack ran through the palm, from thumb to pinky. "I don't know what I did," Jamie said, lips quivering. "All I said was I didn't like eggs, and she just… She was so mad."

Jack reached forward, numb. He couldn't even feel the texture of the wood as Jamie let him cradle his damaged hand. He pushed the sleeve up, and felt a sick sense of wonder. The wood merged flawlessly into the flesh of Jamie's arm, graduating from hard and unyielding to soft and pliant.

His mind shot back to Pitch's party, to the men and women with wooden legs and arms and hands and faces. Those weren't prosthetics, or wooden shoes, or masks. They were dolls. All of them. Even Onyx, with her uneven walk.

"I don't understand," he breathed. His grip tightened on Jamie's hand, but the boy didn't seem to notice. Could he no longer feel it?

Jamie sniffled, but cocked his head to the side. "You don't know?" When Jack looked nothing but confused, the boy went on, "If you're damaged, that part of you goes back."

"Goes back." Goes back to wood, back to its true form, loses that magic that made the dolls flesh. Jack released the hand. "And if you die?" _Sophie_.

"Well, all of you goes back." Jamie tucked his hand away, into a pocket where it could not be seen.

Jack swallowed back a wave of nausea. "Does this happen often?"

Jamie shrugged, looked away, blinked away the burn of tears. "I don't know. Maybe. I don't remember." He forced a smile, strained and weak. "I was thinking we could go to the park today? I heard one of the ducks had babies."

"Yeah. Yeah, sure." Jack felt sick and numb and shocked and angry. His legs didn't want to support him, but he stood. The tremble in his hands was obvious in the shaky note he left for North. He took Jamie by the hand – the one not hidden away – and walked him to the park.

The day blurred. Both boys were sullen and couldn't find much to say to each other. Even catching sight of little ducklings trailing after their mother barely sparked a smile in Jamie, and Jack didn't even notice them.

It was Jamie who said, sadly, "I think I should go home."

This sparked so much dread in Jack's heart that he was struck speechless. His mind screamed and begged, and he wanted nothing more than to grab the smaller boy and run away. Away from Mrs. Bennett, away from the city, away from everything.

Jamie was several feet away and walking quickly when Jack blurted, "Why? Why are you going back to her?"

Jamie paused and looked back over his shoulder. "She's my mother." He said it plainly, as if it were all the answer needed.

"But … she…"

Jamie shook his head. "It's alright. She gets a little crazy sometimes, but she loves me. If you think about it, I really shouldn't complain. I have it better than most."

Jack didn't stop him again. Jamie was gone in a matter of minutes, and Jack sat in the grass, let the moisture soak into his pants. He fought the urge to jump up and ran after Jamie, knowing it would do no good because no one cared. Jamie was not a person. He was a device made to keep an old woman happy.

A shadow fell over him. He looked up, expecting clouds blocking the sun. What he saw was ashen skin and black clothes, black hair, and yellow eyes. He scrambled to his feet, ready to fight or run, though Pitch already had his hands up in surrender. "I came to talk, nothing more."

"I'm not interested." Jack moved to go around the rail of a man, but Pitch stepped easily into his path.

"You could help him, Jack."

Jack's lips thinned and he glared up at the long, pale face, the oddly sincere expression, open and pleading. "I don't know what you… Have you been following me?"

Pitch ignored the question. "You've been here long enough. You're a smart boy. You know what is happening, don't you? Does it keep you up at night? Do you have nightmares? Are the nightmares becoming reality?"

Jack took a faltering step back. Pitch followed. "No," he lies. "I want you to leave me alone."

"The Captain is wrong," Pitch went on. "The nightmare men are good for more than just violence. They were created for observation first. They listen."

"You _have_ been following me…" Jack glanced over his shoulder for an escape. The river was behind him. It might not be very deep, but he shuddered at the thought of finding out.

Pitch crowded him, spread his arms. "Come with me, Jack. Help me change this city."

Jack shook his head, though he couldn't deny his want to see things made better.

Pitch smiled, lips drawing back to expose sharp teeth. "Things can't stay as they are. You know that. I can see it in your eyes. Humans are a plague. Soft, expendable, _mortal_."

Realization struck him, and he shouldn't have been surprised at all. "You're a doll." He didn't mean for it to sound like an accusation.

Pitch wasn't offended. He clucked his tongue, pitying. His smile softened. "You didn't know? Oh, dear boy. I am the first." He took a step back, giving Jack space, but with a confidence that Jack would not be going anywhere until he said so. "I have witnessed the rise and fall of the animates from the very beginning. I have seen the love and hope they brought tarnished and tossed away by the underserving. My people – _our_ people - are being oppressed by the very monsters who begged for their creation."

Cold washed over Jack, clenched tight in his belly. "I'm not one of you." His voice lacked any conviction, and Pitch merely smiled, a parent indulging a child.

Jack made to dart around Pitch, to knock him aside if he must, something dark moved jerkily to block him. Nightmare men, two of them, took position on either side of Pitch, swaying and twitching.

"Don't be afraid," Pitch said. A hand reached out, but Jack moved away, back, until his feet sunk into the muddy ground beside the river. Pitch's hand dropped, but he continued to speak. "We can save this city. We can cure it of its plague, and give it new life."

"Humans are the plague," Jack remembered. The river can't be that deep.

"You have seen the pain they inflict. Should we not fight back? Should we not demand our justice?"

Jack threw himself backward, into the water. He didn't want to hear any more. He wasn't entirely sure he disagreed, and that scared him. Pitch's startled face was the last thing he saw before the river closed over his head.

The river was not swift. But it was deep. Deeper than he expected. And when his feet suddenly had nothing to push off of, he panicked. His arms flailed, his eyes squeezed shut, and he felt himself sink like a stone. _I'm going to die here_, he thought desperately.

Then his foot struck silt and stone, and he used it to push himself to the opposite bank. The water quickly became shallow, and he crawled his way to the surface by clawing at the soft mud with hands and feet. When mud turned to grass, he collapsed on his side, coughing up water, chest heaving, body shaking. If Pitch was still on the other side, he wasn't aware.

By the time he uncurled and staggered to his feet, he was alone. Even the ducks had gone. Soaking wet and miserable, he walked out of the park, and continued on until he was standing outside an apartment door. Shivering, he slammed his fist against the wood, but didn't have the energy for more.

Bunny opened the door, and didn't ask any questions as he stepped aside and let Jack enter.

* * *

**AN: **Things are going to be pretty slow for a while. I'm in the process of finding a new home, and then moving into that new home. I hope to have one by August. Fingers crossed!


	13. In which Jack and Bunny talk

**Chapter Thirteen: In which Jack and Bunny talk…**

Jack returned from communal bathroom in one of Captain Bunnymund's nightshirts, a dishtowel draped over his still-damp hair. The bath, Bunny thought, must have done the boy good. There was a bit more color to his face, and he didn't look so much like he might faint or throw up.

There was still a shadow in his eyes, a haunted look, and he jumped when the door shut a little harder than he expected.

"Air pressure," Bunny explained. "Happens when someone leaves the hall windows open."

Jack nodded and took a seat on the couch, rubbing absently at his hair with the towel. Bunny brought him a cup of warm tea and settled in on the other side.

Silence reigned between them, broken only by the sounds of the city outside and Bunny's habit of slurping his tea. It didn't take long before Jack's leg got jittery and his fingers tapped restlessly against the mug. Normally, Bunny would snap at Jack to stop making so much pointless noise, or to learn how to sit still for more than five minutes. But the way Jack's mouth popped open every few seconds, Bunny could see he was working up to something, so he waited.

"I saw Pitch again." There it was. Jack fixed his gaze on a far corner of the room. He could feel the cushions on the couch shift as Bunny moved closer.

"Are you okay?" Bunny yanked the towel off Jack's head. "Is that why you came here soaking wet? What happened?"

Jack lifted a shoulder, still not looking anywhere but at the corner. "He scared me, but he didn't hurt me. I jumped in the river to get away from him. Some of what he said made sense." Jack looked at Bunny then, brows lowered, troubled. "Is that bad?"

"Maybe. Depends on what parts made sense to you." Bunny leaned in a bit, eyes narrowing, searching. "Jack…?"

"I saw Jamie," Jack said suddenly, a little too loud.

Bunny drew back, lost, with an, "Okay…"

"His hand was … It wasn't…" Jack gripped his own hand by the wrist, dug his nails into the pale skin, reminding himself that he could still feel it, that it was flesh, that Pitch was wrong. He stared hard at the press of his fingers, concentrated on the sharp little stabs of pain. "It was real, but it wasn't. It was…"

"Wood?" Bunny cautiously reached for Jack's hand, prying the fingers away. Red crescents were left behind.

Jack swallowed and nodded. "Yeah. He said his mom, Mrs. Bennett, got mad at him and … and … Bunny?" His eyes darted up, wide and scared. "I think she's hurting them. I think she killed Sophie. I…"

Bunny didn't look surprised, or angry, or sad, or anything. He puffed out a sigh. "I know."

The look Jack shot him was nothing short of incredulous, and then it crumbled. Bunny knew. He _knew_, and he didn't even look sorry. Jack tore his gaze away and jumped up from the couch.

And was promptly thrown back down with Bunny's arm around his waist. Jack punched at the enforcer's shoulder and pushed against the arm restraining him. "Let go!"

"No." Bunny grunted as a small fist whacked him upside the head. He flung a hand out to try and catch Jack's flailing arms. "Settle down and let me talk to you!"

Jack bucked up, but Bunny shifted so there was more weight pinning him down. His energy fled and he sagged against the cushions, chest heaving. "You don't even care."

"I care." Bunny slowly loosened his hold. He was breathing hard, his head bent so all Jack could see was the top of his head and the shaking in his shoulders. "I do care. Just let me say my peace, and if you still want to leave, I won't get in your way."

Jack jerked his hand free. "Fine." When Bunny moved away, he considered the door, but settled into the corner of the couch, his knees drawn up to his chest. He folded his arms stubbornly across his chest and glared at the wall.

Convinced Jack wouldn't be running off, Bunny leaned back with a deep breath. His hands were folded on his lap, fingers twined tightly. "I knew Jamie and Sophie before they were dolls. We, ah … That is, Jamie and I were friends. I was about a year older."

Jack's glare slid to Bunny, confusion working its way through the antagonism. "What?"

"He was my best friend. And I knew, I knew something was wrong. But he didn't like to talk about it, and there wasn't much I could do. He'd turn up with bruises, or he'd ask to sleep over. He hated going home. I tried telling my mother, but she said it wasn't any of our business."

Jack was still trying to wrap his mind around Bunny and little Jamie being the same age, together. Bunny's voice got rough, his accent thicker. There was moisture in his eyes.

"Then the war happened," he went on. "And our city was invaded. Help arrived too late. Jamie and Sophie were found among the dead."

"They were killed by the invaders?" Jack lowered his legs and leaned forward.

Bunny shook his head before tilting it back to stare up at the ceiling. "That's what everyone said. But it didn't feel right. They'd gone into hiding with my family. They were alive when the enemy forces were pushed out of the city. Their bodies were found the next day. Bennett said it was rogue soldiers who did it, but it didn't feel right."

"You think Mrs. Bennett…?"

"I _know_ she did it," Bunny growled. "I tried to prove it for years, but no one…" He heaved a sorrowful sigh. "When North made the dolls for her, no one thought much of it. Just a sad woman missing her children. But they kept turning up damaged, or destroyed. I thought that should prove my case, show everyone that she was capable of harming her own children. But it didn't matter then. They were just dolls."

"They don't matter." Jack's voice was quiet as he curled up against the back of the couch.

Bunny tipped his head to the side to look at the boy. "They matter. I do what I can, but it's hard to keep caring about these people, when you know it's never going to end well. There has to be some distance, or you go crazy. I don't know how Sandy and Sera… What?"

The corner of Jack's mouth had lifted in a small smile. "You called them people."

"Yeah." Bunny turned his head and blew out a hard breath. His fingers cracked as he unwound them to pat at his knees uncomfortably. "So, uh, are we okay?"

Jack nodded. "We're okay. You're not as tough as you pretend you are."

Bunny sat up abruptly and rounded on the boy, but his retort died on his tongue to see a genuine smile on Jack's face. That was how Jack was supposed to look. Light and happy.

"We should get to bed," he decided, groaning a bit as he stood up from the lumpy old couch. "I've got an early shift, and you've had a hard day."

Jack hopped up after him, smile vanishing. "Can I stay in your room again?" Color blossomed over his pale cheeks, and he stammered, "It's just … Pitch wasn't very happy when I, uh, ran away. Into the river. And I'm pretty sure he's been keeping tabs on me with his … those nightmare men? And, um…"

"Jack." Bunny grabbed the boy by the shoulders. "Of course you can."

Bunny left for the bathroom, but was back in the apartment quickly, ready for bed. By then, Jack had set up the lamp to burn all night, and was huddled under the blankets, trying to take up as little room as possible. Bunny was careful not to disturb him as he crawled to his side of the mattress on the floor. After checking that his gun was in reach and ready, he closed his eyes.

Not long after, a stray noise – one Bunny recognized as one of his neighbors unlocking their door and kicking it open - had a half-asleep Jack rolling and tucking himself firmly under Bunny's arm with a whine. The enforcer clucked his tongue in annoyance, but shifted so he could get his arm more firmly around the thin shoulders. He shushed the boy until he fell back to sleep, and then cursed himself.

This is wrong, he thought. It never ends well.

* * *

The next morning, Jack woke alone. He tumbled out of the small bedroom to find Bunny, dressed and ready for work, standing at the kitchen counter with a pen and paper. The older man snapped his head up when he realized Jack was watching him.

"Morning," Jack greeted, mustering up a good dose of cheer despite how early it was.

Bunny crumpled the paper and tossed it on the floor. His reply was a short grunt as he marched across the room to the door.

Jack frowned and rubbed the back of his head, mussing his hair so it stood more on end than usual. "Did you not get enough sleep last night, or…"

"Get dressed and go home." Bunny yanked his door open, but paused halfway out. He didn't turn around. His grip on the doorknob tightened so his knuckles turned white. "Stop coming to me with your problems. North is the one you should be running to."

And then he was gone.

Stunned, Jack couldn't move for a handful of minutes. By the time he found his voice and his feet, Bunny was long gone. He got dressed slowly, mind racing through the previous day, trying to pick out a moment, any indication that he had done something wrong.

He couldn't find it.

The walk to the doll shop was long and tiring. When he arrived, he went straight to his little stool behind the counter and slumped down. His mind was numb, his chest ached. North and Tooth tried to talk to him, but he didn't know what to tell them. They took turns checking on him, tried to talk him into going to the apartment and laying down. But he refused. Maybe Bunny would come to check on him, like he had every day so far.

Bunny never came.

But Jamie did. He was wearing gloves to hide his one wooden hand, and he had a pocketful of coins and tears in his eyes.

"Wanna go get some ice cream?" he asked.

"Yeah," Jack croaked. "Let's do that." His body felt like lead, but he took the kid by the hand and forced one foot ahead of the other.


	14. In which Jack has a very bad day

Jack and Jamie were unusually quiet as they made their way downtown. They stepped into an alley just before reaching the market district and followed it through to the other side, neatly avoiding any chance of coming upon those who might stare them down or shout at Jamie for simply existing. "Worthless animate" and "dummy" were the most common insults. Sometimes, they were more colorful.

"Animate" was the official term for dolls, and was considered more polite and proper. Jack learned that those who used this word were usually easier to deal with, more forgiving. Some were even sympathetic, but too afraid of the backlash to be supportive.

The term "dummy" was a doll-specific insult. In the city of Burgess, to be called a dummy was to be compared to a doll. It meant to be lifeless, dead. Worthless.

Jamie took it all in stride. The insults never seemed to affect him. Jack, though, flinched and braced himself. He remembered the man who had attacked Katherine, how no one cared enough to stop it, how _he_ had been the one in trouble for defending her. It was only a matter of time before it happened again.

They left the alley for the small stretch of shops that were known to be doll-friendly. Many had been shut down, vandalized, abandoned, bullied out of business. Only a few stubbornly remained. Jamie's favorite treat shop was one of them.

Or had been.

There was more people than Jack had ever seen before moving into and out of the store. As they neared, heads turned and eyes were narrowed. Someone spat, "Dummy". They were all human, Jack realized.

The "come one, come all" sign that welcomed _everyone_ into the store was gone, replaced with a government-issued "NO ANIMATES" plaque. Jamie grabbed Jack's hand painfully hard, his voice choking on a sound of dismay.

"Come on." Jack gently tugged Jamie back as the murmuring grew. A glob of spit landed near his shoe. "Let's go."

Jamie jerked his hand free, crying, "No!" Jack couldn't catch him in time, and the boy darted into the store. Jack bumped into someone as he chased after. He ignored how loud the voices were getting, how angry.

The old man who ran the shop was behind the counter. He looked up in alarm, his hand frozen in the act of passing a paper bag to a waiting woman snarling down at Jamie. Jamie, too, was frozen. Mottled bruises colored the side of the man's face, and his long sleeves couldn't hide the heavy bandages binding one arm.

Jack grabbed Jamie by the shoulders and hauled him backward. "We have to go," he hissed. As they stumbled out the door, he saw the old man's face turn apologetic.

They didn't get far. As soon as Jack shoved Jamie out the door, someone grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. He found himself face-to-fist with a young man in a green shirt. That was the only detail he caught before pain exploded between his eyes and down the bridge of his nose. A warm, wet trickle quickly followed. He tasted blood on his lips.

He wiped at the blood ineffectually, groped behind him with his other hand. He couldn't find Jamie. Panic welled up in him. He couldn't hear anything but a persistent buzz. His vision was blurred and he couldn't tell the people from the scenery, everything was swaying and morphing. A shove sent him slamming into the wall with his shoulder. His own scream sounded far away, muffled.

He was yanked back against a body larger than his own, his arms pinned to his sides. The buzzing in his ears gave way to shouting, but he still couldn't make out the fuzzy mass surrounding him. As another blow caught him in the stomach, he desperately hoped Jamie was safe, that he had run away.

Something loud and shrill and terrible cut through the noise, and the weight holding him upright vanished. He found himself on the ground, the pain from the impact filtering through only after he had lain there for a few seconds. He waited, sure they were going to kick him to death.

Instead, he was grabbed roughly by the arm and hauled to his feet. Tiny hands closed around one of his. He blinked, and saw Jamie pressed to his side, trying to hold him upright as he swayed dangerously. If it weren't for the pressure gripping his other arm, he knew he'd be on the ground again.

People were shouting, but not at him. The voice next to him was thick and heavily accented. Jack tried to hold steady long enough to get a look at Captain Bunnymund blowing on a whistle and fending off the crowd with his voice, threats of arrest and kicking asses for disturbing the peace. There was accusations thrown his way, of being a dummy lover, of interfering with good fun.

But no one had the balls to attack an officer, and with parting grumbles the mob backed down and let Bunny drag Jack and Jamie away from the scene.

Jack's relief was short-lived. They slipped into an alley, and he found his back slammed into a wall and Bunny hovering over him. He groaned and shoved weakly at the enforcer's chest. Bunny didn't even acknowledge it.

"What the hell were you doing?" Bunny growled. "How hard is it to stay out of trouble?" That, was a yell, so loud it buzzed.

"We were just getting ice cream," Jamie piped up. He was still clinging to Jack's hand.

"You should know by now to pay attention to signs." Bunny's eyes cut down to Jamie, but flicked back to Jack.

"It wasn't a cesspool of haters the last several times we've been there," Jack snapped back. At least his voice still worked. His vision was clearing. There was still blood dripping from his nose, over his lips, and off his chin. "Why don't you find the assholes who beat the crap out of the owner?"

Bunny scoffed and gave Jack a shove on his injured shoulder, sparking a jolt of pain that nearly floored him, before stepping back. He winced, but turned his gaze to the mouth of the alley. "He won't press charges. I can't do anything about that."

"I suppose you can't do anything about what just happened out there either?" Jack pushed away from the wall, only to fall back again when the world threatened to go dark.

Bunny didn't look. "You know I can't. You're lucky Jamie was able to find me in time. No one else would have stopped them."

"Yeah. I _feel_ lucky." Jack spit blood, and aimed it for Bunny's leg. He was satisfied to see a few drops of red land on uniform pants.

Bunny looked at him sharply, but whatever he was about to say was swallowed back. He heaved a long-suffering sigh. "Go home, Jack. I'll take Jamie back to his mom…" At least he didn't look happy about it.

Both boys shouted, "No!" Jack added, "He can come with me."

"Mrs. Bennett should know what happened."

Jack looked incredulous. Jamie just looked heartbroken, and scared. "She'll be mad," he cried. He stepped backward. "I'm not going." He turned, and ran.

Jack didn't care how much it hurt, how his vision went black for a moment as he shoved away from the wall and took off after Jamie. He heard Bunny shout something behind him, but all he could see was a small boy running blind into the street. He didn't hear the rumble of a carriage barreling down toward them, only caught sight of it in the corner of his eye. He wouldn't realize it was an automobile until the split second when he leapt and grabbed Jamie and tossed the small body to the opposite side.

It should have hurt terribly to be struck by a car, but he didn't feel anything at all. He heard something snap, knew that at least one of the wheels had rolled over his leg. He had twisted in his fall to watch it happen. As his consciousness faded, he thought it wasn't a bad way to die.


	15. In which Jack may or may not be dead

**Chapter Fifteen: In which Jack may or may not be dead...**

He was dying. It was cold, and familiar, and painful. The water held him, froze him, pushed past his lips and teeth and filled his lungs. He knew this dream of a memory. It was the only one that came back to him, over and over. It had never felt so real. Some part of his mind wanted to insist he would not be waking from this one.

With a gasp and a full body jolt, he proved that part of his mind wrong. Chest heaving, blood pounding, he struggled to get up and away. Away from what? Something was holding him down, pressing his back against a hard surface. His eyes snapped open and he threw his arms up to shove the bulk hovering over him away. He tried to crawl backward the moment his shoulders were released, but his leg wasn't working and the hands almost had him again when the surface abruptly ended and he found himself tipping backward.

He was caught and shoved into a sitting position. No more hands grabbed at him, but the heavy weight of an arm across his back held him upright. A voice close to his ear said, "Calm down, you moron."

And he did. He sucked in a few deep, shuddery breaths and squeezed his eyes shut until the remnants of the dream faded. He wasn't dying. He wasn't dead.

He had been hit by a car, he remembered. But he wasn't dead.

"Jamie?" he asked.

"He's fine." It was Bunny's voice hovering at his ear, blowing warm breath into the shell and disturbing the pale hair there. "Safe and sound and not a scratch on him. He's back with his mom."

Jack blinked and turned his gaze sideways. He couldn't see much more than Bunny's chest and chin, lit up yellow with lamplight. "That isn't safe and sound."

"Nothing to be done about it." The arm tightened just a little. "I had to worry about you. They should change my job description. Jack's savior has a nice ring."

Jack snorted. "No it doesn't."

He leaned away from Bunny's arm, though he didn't feel any more stable. He had already guessed that he wasn't in any sort of hospital. There wasn't enough light, too little noise, and the smell of sawdust and paint was too thick. There was a heavy blanket draped over his legs. He was seated on the worktable that stood in the middle of North's basement workshop.

He felt heavy and a little scared. A flash of anger settled into something cold and calm, and he shuddered.

He fingered the edge of the blanket. "Where are North and Tooth?"

"Gone to bed, a while ago. You've been out five hours or so." Bunny moved so he was facing Jack, and hopped up to the perch on the edge of the table. "Are you going to freak out?"

Jack shrugged. "I feel like maybe I should. But I don't feel much of anything right now." Still, he didn't want to move the blanket. "I think I've known for a while now. I just…I didn't want…"

"North should have told you. Hell, you should have been told from the very beginning."

"Is it obvious?" He took a quick glance around the room, but there weren't any mirrors to see if his eyes went all white in the light. Come to think of it, he couldn't recall seeing his own reflection more than a handful of times, and usually in windows or distorted over things like bowls or spoons. His mother had owned only one – a hand mirror – and she guarded it like a prized possession.

Bunny shrugged. "It's the hair."

"Hair?" Jack grabbed a strand and pulled it until he could see the silvery white strands between his fingers. "Not my eyes?"

"Nah. Your eyes are the older kind. The hair though … It's not exactly common on young ones. There's also a specific brand of dolls that come with white hair. They, ah … It's the signature look for one of the 'entertainment' houses."

"Like the brothels?"

Bunny nodded. "The high class kind. You also have a habit of wandering around with a couple of well-known dolls. Anyone would assume you were one of them. But I also knew about you before you ever came here. North can go on for hours about his family."

Jack's hands tightened over the blanket. He stared at the mounds his legs made under it. He couldn't feel anything on the left. "Why? I mean, what happened? I … died, right?"

"You need to talk to North about all of that." He closed a hand over one of Jack's. "You're taking this surprisingly well. Still in shock?" The hand moved to lay against Jack's forehead.

Jack huffed a half-hearted laugh. "Maybe. Can I go into shock?"

"You can do anything anyone else can."

Jack pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breath, the beating of his heart. Even after seeing North bring life to a few wooden constructs, he still didn't understand how it worked. "I'm real."

"You are."

There was only one thing left to do then. His hands were unbelievably steady as he jerked the blanket away from his legs and let it fall to the floor.

"God." He felt a bit like throwing up. Bunny steadied him so he didn't pitch right off the table.

"You jumped in front of an automobile, Jack. You're lucky you only lost the one."

From the knee down, his left leg was roughly hewn wood. The foot lacked the fine detail of North's usual works. He ran a shaking hand over the calf, but pulled back when the wood caught his finger. In the poor light, he tried to locate the splinter and pick it out.

"Shoddy work," he said, trying to smile, laugh. It felt false, stiff, forced. "I didn't even get toes."

"It was a rush job. I'm sure he'll make you something downright lovely when he's not scared sick and exhausted. Here. You're not going to get it out with your teeth." Bunny gently pulled Jack's hand away from his mouth and held it toward one of the lamps North kept scattered about the room.

It took a bit of work to find the splinter. It wasn't all that large, and Jack didn't help any. It was a good excuse to ignore each other for a moment, for Jack to process, for Bunny to pretend this was not as serious as it felt. Neither of them spoke as he worked it free. "Ah! There we go!" Bunny flicked his fingers to get rid of the tiny fleck of wood. His triumphant smile vanished when he turned to look at Jack.

Jack was crying. His lips were pressed together tight, and tears were making tracks down his face. No matter how he wiped at them, they kept falling. "Sorry," he whispered. "I'm okay, I'm just…" He grit his teeth and lurched forward.

Bunny caught him in a loose embrace and tucked his head against a shoulder, a hand stroking over pale hair. Jack clung back, gasping and screaming until his grief was exhausted.

* * *

When next Jack woke, he was alone in the basement workshop, a folded note from Bunny tucked under his pillow. He lay still for some times, listening the thump of feet and the murmur of voices overhead. North and Tooth.

He sat up slowly, pushing away the blanket Bunny must have tugged over him. He didn't move it from his legs just yet, wasn't sure he would be able to. Instead, he opened Bunny's note.

_Gone to work. Be back later. –Capt. Bunnymund_

The signature was really more of a large C and a squiggle, and a larger B and a longer squiggle, so he was assuming. He folded the note back up and made to tuck it in a pocket, only he had none. It hadn't occurred to him until now that someone had taken his clothes and put him in a gown. It was his own gown, which meant someone had gone to the apartment to retrieve it.

Someone had undressed him.

Someone had dressed him. Like some kind of … like a…

He sucked in a breath. North dressed dolls all the time. They were always dressed up nice before they fully awakened. It was probably North who did it. He was practiced at it. A knot of shame and embarrassment twisted in his guts, and he flushed red all over. Had Bunny and Tooth been present? He couldn't decide which was worse.

It was easier to remove the blanket the second time, though a breath of regret still escaped him. He could _feel_ where flesh stopped and wood began. It wasn't a smooth transition from one to the other, like Jamie's hand, but a hard line. Given that his new leg was hastily carved, he could guess the damage had been too great. They'd had to replace it entirely.

He didn't want to try and imagine how that had been done. It was hard enough accepting a part of him _could_ be removed and replaced. His new leg felt strange, but he _could_ feel it. It was very much a part of him. His foot wiggled when he wanted it to, and with as little concentration as moving his fingers or toes. Well – the foot that had toes. The tip of his new foot felt blunted, numb, as if his body knew five little digits should be there.

Standing proved to be something of a challenge. With his bare, undamaged foot he could feel the rough wood that made the floor, every grain, every warp, every stray curl and grit of sawdust. His new leg was just slightly too long, and sensation was muted. Jack likened it to wearing thick soled shoes with his foot wrapped in several layers of cotton. He walked with a limp.

He paced the basement several times before he was confident enough to take on the stairs. After a few stumbling steps and nearly falling backward for misjudging where his foot was landing, he resorted to clinging to the handrail and hopping up on his good foot.

The door made a terrible groaning sound as he attempted to push it open while balancing on one of the steps. The murmur of voices on the other side ceased, and when he peeked around the door, North and Tooth were staring back.

North moved first, catching the heavy door and holding it open so Jack could enter the shop. Tooth took him by the arm and steadied him as she led him to the stool behind the counter. A protest sprang onto his tongue, but he swallowed it down. Getting up the stairs had been tiring, and exhaustion – physical and mental – had him all but collapsing on the stool and draping the upper half of his body all over the counter.

North's large hand was warm on his back. "How are you feeling?"

Jack buried his face in the fold of his arms. "Bunny says I'm taking it surprisingly well."

"Ah." The hand retreated.

Jack pushed himself up, though one hand made its way into his hair, threading through and tugging. "I died, right? I'm dead?" He snuck a peek up at North when no answer came. His uncle – could he still call him that? – looked at him with sad, tired eyes. Tooth mumbled an apology and slipped away downstairs.

"I drown in that pond, didn't I?" Jack watched North sigh, and nod. "Why wasn't I told? Everything's a lie. Everything I remember is a lie." His voice was rising.

He was halfway out of his seat when North said, "No. You are still Jack. And your family loved you, before and after. It was real, all of it."

"Except this!" Jack thrust his new leg out, the wood of his heel scraping against the floor. "And all of this!" He gestured wildly to the rest of his body, then grabbed a bit of hair dangling over his eyes. "Is this even my real hair color?"

North shook his head. "It was an emergency. When your father contacted me and told me what had happened, I took what I had and went to him as quickly as I could. You were supposed to have brown hair, and brown eyes. All I had in stock was the white. And the eyes … I thought it would be easier, for all of you, if your eyes did not change. The people in your village … someone would notice if they changed with the light. There would be questions. And your father, he only wanted his son back. Blue were the only ones I had left of the old kind. He said he didn't care about the colors. They would find a way to explain it."

The old man approached the counter slowly, as if afraid Jack would run or attack. When the boy only watched him with equal wariness, he leaned heavily against the furniture and rubbed a hand over his face.

"They said the shock of falling in the pond scared the color away…" Jack said, softly. "They said that was why I lost my memories too." He looked up at North sharply. "If I always meant to be me, then why take my memories at all?"

North tensed, still cautious. "It was a mistake. Tooth only meant to take the memory of your death. But some minds, they are trickier than others..."

"A mistake?" The stool fell over when Jack stood, wobbling for balance and clutching the countertop. "I woke up, and had no idea who I was, or what happened to me, and it was all just a mistake?" And the hair, and the eyes, and way everyone treated him when he came to the city… He wasn't real. He wasn't human. He was a thing created to console his parents.

"Everyone knew. Everyone knew but me." He felt dizzy and sick as he shoved away from the counter and stumbled back into a wall. He swung an arm out when North reached out to steady him. "Why did no one tell me?"

"Jack, you parents wanted you to have a normal life, like a normal child." North tried to reach out for him again, but he was walking away. He heard something about the news being too much of a shock. About fear over how he would react. About dolls finding out they were dolls going to extremes, losing the will to live.

He said, "I need air," cutting off North's explanations.

He left the doll shop, and continued on, barefoot and limping and wearing only a nightshirt. No one followed, and he didn't wonder at it. After a few blocks, his mind went fuzzy and he didn't think at all. The sun was setting when he left the city limits, and the paved roads turned to dirt.

He didn't hear the crunch of gravel behind him. The snort and whicker of a horse. The creak of a door opening, and footfalls rushing to catch him. It was only when a hand closed around his arm did he stop.

"Jack, where are you going?" He felt breath over the top of his head, and a body at his back.

"Home." He didn't recognize his own voice. It was far away and dead. "I want … I have a grave, don't I? They must have buried me somewhere."

Another hand settled on his shoulder. "Not likely. The custom is to burn the bodies. My dear boy, _this_ is who you are now."

Jack shook his head. It hurt. Everything hurt. "No."

"You are not one of them, Jack. You never will be. They will never accept you. Not really. You've seen it for yourself, haven't you?"

He didn't resist as he was gently turned. Long fingers curled under his chin and tilted his head up so he was looking up at Pitch Black. The man made a pitying sound. "Just look at what they've done to you."

Jack reached a hand up to his own face. It didn't hurt, not anymore. But there was a puffiness under his eyes and across his nose, the skin was tender. He wondered what it must look like.

"A small injury," Pitch went on, his thumb stroking Jack's cheek. "A pity it had to happen at all. No one cares, Jack. Not the people, not the government."

"North…" Jack said, surprised by the thickness of his voice.

Pitch shook his head. "North, who makes more and more dolls, _knowing_ what happens to them. To us. How many Jamies do you suppose he's made for that woman? He knows, Jack. He knows what she does to them. He doesn't care. We are disposable, easily replaced."

Jack's new leg felt heavy, strange, wrong. His forehead and nose where he had been punched began to itch and burn. His vision blurred. Cool lips pressed to his forehead, and he shuddered.

"Come home." Pitch drew him toward the carriage and lifted him up to place him inside. He didn't remember much of the ride back into the city, except thin arms and whispered words of comfort.

* * *

**AN: **I tried to make it obvious.

Thank you everyone for your comments and for reading. It means a lot!

Also, as I'm not sure an explanation will make its way into the story - Dolls can bleed. They can bruise. They have blood and breath. A minor injury, like a cut or bruise, will heal up same as a human.


	16. In which Jack is told a story

"You just let him walk out of here?"

"He needed fresh air. I did not think he would go far. I thought he would go back to the apartment."

"Well he didn't, did he? And now we don't know where he is!"

"We will find him, Bunny. Tooth is asking around. Katherine is looking. Sandy and Sera have even agreed to help. People go missing all the time. You know this."

"He's a _doll_, North. They go missing, they aren't usually found in one piece."

* * *

Jack woke to the sound of rain. He was warm, tucked up tightly in an overlarge bed with thick covers. He had never felt so comfortable in his life. The room itself was large – larger than North's entire apartment – but sparse. There was a chest by the door, and a small table and chair under the window. Outside was dark, and he wasn't sure if it was because of the storm, or because it was night. From how his body felt, he thought he must have slept for several hours.

He was somewhere in Pitch's mansion. One of several rooms, surely. He had only a vague memory of coming here, of being deposited on the bed, of fingers ghosting through his hair and whispered words he didn't quite catch. Words meant to comfort, to give him hope. But as he pulled his legs free of the covers, he felt no comfort, no hope.

He yanked the blankets back over his legs, over his head, and curled down in the dark.

He fell asleep. He must have, because it was the sound of voices, trying to be quiet, that roused him the second time.

"He has been through an ordeal." Pitch. "Let him rest as long as he needs, and give him whatever he asks for."

"Sir." Onyx.

There was pressure over his shoulder, of someone pressing down just a little, and then footsteps moving away, and the door clicking shut. Jack poked his head out of the blanket, confirming he was alone once more. He ducked back under the blankets.

When he woke again, it was to the smell of beef and vegetables, thick and warm and achingly familiar. He peeked over the edge of the blankets to see Onyx leaving. She paused to look back at him.

"I brought you dinner," she said, her voice as dull as he remembered. And then she was gone.

Dinner was bowl of stew and a glass of something golden and smelling of spiced apples. He abandoned the bed long enough to grab both off the table. He set the glass on the floor, and balanced the bowl on his knees as he ate. The stew was similar to the kind his mother made, and he choked on the memory of her before he was halfway through.

Had she loved him as he always believed? Or was it the memory of the real boy who died in the pond that she clung to? He had loved her. He had loved his father, and his little sister. He had loved them all fiercely. To think it all could have been a lie. _He_ was a lie.

He set the empty bowl on the floor and took a sip from the glass. Some kind of cider, with the hint of alcohol. He drank it all down greedily, and let the warmth spread through him, lay back as the room spun and sleep tugged him under once more.

The chirping of birds pulled him out of dreams where his mother held him tightly, and his father danced around the room with his sister, stinking of dirt and fertilizer and their stupid old donkey. He tried to hold on to it, but it slipped away quietly.

He pushed the blankets off his head, and blinked hard against the sunlight streaming into the room. He was alone, but there was a plate of eggs and toast on the table, and mug of steaming something. Coffee, by the smell of it. The dishes from before were gone.

Rather than bring the dishes back to bed, and risk burning himself while juggling the plate and the coffee, he dragged the table across the room so it was next to the bed. His new foot thumped too loudly, no matter how gently he tried to step. He hid his lower half under the covers, ashamed and angry. He didn't even feel hungry, but for all the trouble to get the plate to the bed, he felt he had to eat it now.

The eggs and toast were gone, and coffee barely touched – it was black, and he could barely stomach it with no milk or sugar added – when he heard a knock at the door. He didn't say anything, didn't call out, didn't move. He didn't want to see anyone.

But the door crept open anyway, and Pitch leaned in to take a look around. When he saw Jack sitting up in bed with a cooling mug of coffee between his hands, he smiled and stepped in the rest of the way. He had a bundle in his arms. "I'm happy to see you awake, at last."

Jack scooted down on the bed, further under the blankets. "Guess I was tired," he mumbled. "Um, thanks for the food, though."

"Of course." He set the bundle on the table. "How are you feeling?"

Jack sank further into the blankets, clutching his mug like a lifeline. "I don't know."

"Understandable. After what happened…"

"I don't want to talk about it," Jack cut in sharply. "Sorry," he added softly, his lips brushing the edge of the mug.

"When you're ready." Pitched patted the bundle on the table. "I brought you a change of clothes. I wasn't sure of the size, so they might be a bit large. There is a bath across the hall. I can have Onyx fill the tub if you…"

Jack was already shaking his head. "No. Thank you. I just … I want to be alone. I'm tired." He set the coffee on the table and drew the blankets up to his chin.

"As you wish." Pitch inclined his head. "If you need anything, anything at all, please call on me."

"Yeah. Sure."

Pitch left. Before the door was fully shut, the covers were over Jack's head, blocking out the daylight.

Sleep didn't come. He lay hidden for hours, trying to think of nothing. He made up stories in his head, hoping to lull himself into a dream, or at least distance himself from his thoughts. But every daydream, every thought, circled back to the accident, to waking up in a workshop rather than a hospital, to thumping across the room with a hastily carved leg.

It was sunset when he pushed the covers away, weary, but bored. There was nothing to do in this room but lay about or eat when food was given. He didn't have much desire to do anything else. Even eating felt like a chore.

A bath, at least, would give him something to do.

The bathroom was, as Pitch had said, across the hall. The tub was nicest Jack had ever laid eyes on. It was all white, with elegant clawed feet, and stood up on its own pedestal of marble tiles. He stopped up the bottom and twisted the knobs, and was surprised to feel warm water almost immediately.

Much as he wanted to fill the tub to the brim and watch at all flood out when he got in, he wasn't sure what the water would do to his new leg. When the tub was half full, he shut off the water, then checked to see if he could lock the door. He could, so he did.

He managed to maneuver himself into the tub by keeping his wooden leg outside, and then hanging it over the lip as he sank into the water. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but the soap was in easy reach, and he felt better after scrubbing himself clean.

He washed his body three times, and his hair twice. And then he dropped the soap, and it slid away across the marble tiles, out of reach, and suddenly Jack had nothing with which to distract himself. He closed his eyes and tried just relaxing, but all too quickly his mind wanted to remind him why he was here, in Pitch's home, why one of his legs was dangling outside of the tub, why he was alive at all.

He thought of his parents and his little sister, wasting away to disease, buried in their own field, leaving him behind.

His eyes snapped open and he fumbled for the edges of the tub to haul himself out. But he moved too fast. His bad leg caught, his good foot slipped, and he fell backward instead, sliding down the curve of the tub. The soapy water closed over his head.

For an instant, the flash of a second, he wondered what would happen if he opened his mouth and let the water in. He had been told dolls could die as easily as real people. Could they drown? The ache in his lungs told him they could. He could.

He could see his father again. His mother, his little sister. He had been cheated out of his afterlife.

Panic swept over him, and almost against his will, he scrambled for the edges of the tub and lurched up out of the water, gasping in air until sobs took over, soap and tears stinging his eyes, both legs submerged.

"Jack?" There was a knock at the door. "Jack, are you alright?" Pitch was on the other side.

Jack scrubbed at his face and sniffled loudly. "Yeah. Fine."

"You're sure?"

"Yeah." He spotted a towel hanging from a hook on the wall and carefully stood to retrieve it. "I'm just getting out."

"Take your time. I'll wait."

He didn't hear anything more, but he was pretty sure Pitch was standing right outside the door, dark and imposing and tall. He felt a sense of urgency, an obligation not to make his host wait on him, especially after he had spent so much time hiding away in bed. At the same time, he didn't want to face the man at all, and a nervousness just under the skin slowed his movements as he toweled off and pulled on the clothes he had brought with him.

They were the set Pitch had supplied him. A simple shirt and pants, undergarments and socks. He left off the socks, his feet too damp from the bath to bother with them. They didn't look big enough to fit over the wooden foot, anyway. The pants were, at least, wide enough in the leg to fit easily and hide the new appendage. He ran his fingers through his hair, but avoided the mirror. He didn't want to see the white, or the blue of his eyes.

He slid the lock on the door free, drew a breath, and pulled it open. Pitch was there, leaning against the wall, arms crossed and tapping his fingers impatiently.

"Um…Hi." Jack raised a hand, eyes darting between Pitch and the bedroom door. "I was just going back to…" He gestured weakly to the door.

Pitch stood up from the wall. "Actually, I hoped you would join me. I have yet to give you the grand tour."

"Oh. Um…" He looked again to the bedroom door, longingly. He wanted to disappear. He didn't want to go home, but he didn't really want to be here. He wanted Bunny, and his old, lumpy couch. He also didn't want to be rude to the one who gave him a bed and food and fresh clothes. He tore his gaze away from the door, couldn't quite look at Pitch. "S-sure."

Pitch's smile lacked any humor or sincerity. It was all teeth and sharp edges. "Come then." He turned on a heel and his long legs carried him away. Jack had to jog to keep up.

They left the hall, while Pitch pointed out three more bedrooms and another bath, all of them for guests. His own room, he said, was in another part of the house. The foyer and ballroom Jack recognized, but there were studies and living rooms and sitting rooms as well, all lavishly decorated. Expensive furniture, paintings on the walls, statues, sculptures, fine rugs. The dining hall sported a massive table and many chairs. Jack tried to count them, but they moved on before he could. The kitchen was actually a kitchen, not just a stove against a wall.

"It's all very impressive," Jack said, when Pitch ushered him onto a balcony to look out on his vast garden.

"Thank you." Pitch inclined his head.

"But … And I don't want to offend you…" Jack looked away from the garden, not all that interested in bushes and flowers and the great expanse of it all.

"Nothing you say could offend me." The smile he was given was almost kind.

Jack shied away from it. "You're a doll."

Pitch didn't look insulted. He was amused. "I am aware."

"But you have this house? And obviously, you've got money. What do you do? How do you do it? I thought dolls couldn't own property, or hold employment. I mean, aside from … from…"

"From prostitution, or the kind of work no one else wants to do?"

Jack nodded. Pitch slipped an arm around his slender shoulders and drew him back into the house. "May I tell you a story?" Jack nodded again.

They ended up in one of the sitting rooms. More of a library, really. The shelves were tall and crowded over with books. Where there was space for them, large paintings hung on the walls. Pitch directed Jack to one, of a young man in military uniform, an officer, standing proudly beside an older man with a pointed beard and mustache.

"That's you." The young soldier had a healthier complexion, his eyes were painted dark, but it was unmistakably Pitch. And the other… "Is … is that North?"

"It is. He had this painting commissioned near the end of the war." There was something in the way Pitch spoke, a distance, a longing, and when Jack looked, he could see a soft smile and pride in his eyes. "I was a hero then."

"I learned about the war some. I'm afraid no one ever told me about a hero named Pitch Black."

"And no one will. That man—" Pitch reached up to touch canvas. "—was Kosmotis Pitchener."

Jack startled and looked between the painting and Pitch.

Pitch backed away from the painting. "You recognize the name?"

"Well … yeah. I mean, we weren't told a lot, but they say he was part responsible for ending the war. He … you won some of the most important battles. But you died. In the last battle. A bomb fell right on you!"

"Is that what they're teaching you?" Pitch covered his mouth with his hand, but there was no hiding the laughter.

Jack flushed red, and found himself pushed into a chair in the center of the room.

Pitch dropped into its twin, with only a small table between them. He sank back against the plush cushions, head in his hand and fingers tapping against his cheek. "I took part in two winning battles. I led one. It was the one that won me my fame, and it was a turning point in our favor. The war was over when I died. We – my men and I – were pulling out of a village we had been holding when we were ambushed. A small band of enemy soldiers who refused to give up. It wasn't a bomb that got me, Jack. I was stabbed. With a knife. Small thing, really. From the size of the wound, the medic thought it might have been a kitchen knife. A steak knife."

Jack blinked. "Really?"

"I suppose, after the fact, they may have embellished some things."

"So … so how did you end up here?" Jack waved around at the room, but he meant all of it. "How did you become a doll? You said you were the first."

Pitch inclined his head in acknowledgement. "I did. And I was. My father was so distraught when they brought my body home to him, he flat out refused to believe I was gone forever. He consulted God, and then gods, and when they did not work, he turned to darker things. Spirit workers, demon magic, wizardry."

Jack's eyes strayed to the portrait of Kosmotis and North.

"He carved me a new body, and gave me new life. Because my death had been so publicized, I could not return to the world as Kosmotis Pitchener. I took a new name and became my father's apprentice. Together, we mastered the craft of doll making. No one knew what I was. Few do now."

"North." Jack's voice was weak. He found it difficult to look away from the painting, but he did. He looked at Pitch, and found the man smiling back, amused. "North is your father? He never said."

"Of course not." The smile vanished into a snarl. "We had a falling out. We disagreed on many things. I eventually took my share of the profits and settled in here, struck up my own business."

"What business is that?" He was afraid to ask. He remembered the party, the people – the dolls – with arms and legs and faces of wood. The nightmare men.

Pitch spread his hands. "Rebellion."


End file.
